The Sonia Sotomayor Confirmation Thread

Hey, Roberts and Alito had their own threads!

NYT liveblog here.

The ‘Everyday White Guy’ | 11:30 a.m.

After Judge Sotomayor’s remarks about a “wise Latina” making a better decision than a white man, Senator Graham said he was troubled by that as “an everyday white guy” right around the time he was scheduled to meet with her for the first time. Today, he soft-pedaled it a little, saying he didn’t think those decisions would be “better” than others.

i'm gonna try to not pay attention to this

don't think i could take very much indignant white man BS in real time

oh who am i kidding

what the fuck is this garbage

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl508

thanks ron fournier

next time try pix w/thought bubbles

Im glad someone is speaking up for the oppressed white majority in this country.

Someone on twitter said the voice of Jeff Sessions is what a whites-only water fountain would sound like if it could speak. LOL agreed!

I'm convinced all the fretting about the 'wise Latina' remark and so on has almost nothing to do with Sotomayor. it's about the GOP trying to take their pound of flesh from Democrats since Dems have taken out a few GOP big shots like George Allen and Trent Lott over race-related comments (which were actually racist, in their case).

jeez they're already way behind schedule. senate statements are going to go on and on and on, and joe the biden isn't even involved.

So all of this is just because she was chosen by The Enemy, right?

Because Sotomayor's confirmation will be a walk in the park (esp now that Franken's on board as the 60th vote), the only halfway interesting question is who will the Republicans try to score points on and what sort of shots will they take? The next question is: will anyone be watching and will they even care?

really wish these hearings wrapped up on time today, what with the issues i really care about like holder prosecutions over torture, dick cheney's secret assassination squads, house releasing something on health care (i think) at 3. given that it's a foregone conclusion they'll confirm her.

First we must have our kabuki theater on the subject of abortion.

gross

You also misread that as bukkake, didn't you?

no, the entire idea of "abortion kabuki" is just ew

holder prosecutions over torture

just heard about this today(!) - very interesting if this goes forward. Also this whole Cheney-made-the-CIA-lie-to-Congress thing, that looks like undeinable fodder for some serious lawsuits/prosecution

I wonder if this Cheney Assassination Squad thing is what Hersh was referring to a couple years ago

might well be.

Officials: CIA program targeted al-Qaida leaders

seems like some pushback going on here, very quickly - eg - if it's a program targeting al qaeda leaders, what's the problem? not informing congress, for one, but second.. there must be something specifically stunning and illegal about this, that's not being conveyed here by the officials commenting off the record..

hah, this blogger i read shares my appreciation for NFL-style nicknames, calls Sen. Klobuchar "Klobes"

the weird thing about that is that's the kinda program you would EXPECT the CIA to be running, what's the point of keeping it from Congress...? If there's any kind of assassination program that congress would approve of, targeting Al Qaeda leaders definitely qualifies

I'm guessing they either a) fucked an operation up REALLY badly or b) were doing some other kind of highly illegal dirt under the auspices of this program

Franken!

Who's that yelling at him? Norm Coleman?

don't think i could take very much indignant white man BS in real time

^^ yup: tried this morning, couldn't

it's even more difficult to sit through when none of it even reaches the level of outright indignation and is put in terms of "troubling" "concerns" that are "unsettling," or Graham's approach that she is going to get confirmed but he just hopes that when there's a conservative nominee everyone remembers how nice and noble he's being about ignoring those "troubling" "unsettling" "concerns," which now he's listing, not because he cares, but just for the record, so people can remember how understanding he's being

(what's "troubling" and "unsettling" to me is the extent to which all commentary by committee Republicans seemed to suggest the main thing they needed to double-check about her was that she's Latina -- i.e., leaping beyond the "problem" quote and almost openly acknowledging that we are fine with having non-white non-men on the Supreme Court, but first we need to double-check that being non-white and non-male doesn't actually mean anything substantial or different about them)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJgDalwwQww

That kind of schtick has a name, it is called "concern trolling".

I'm guessing they either a) fucked an operation up REALLY badly or b) were doing some other kind of highly illegal dirt under the auspices of this program

yeah. something else is going on - here's on it. good grief, can this hearing end for the day already so the news programs can start talking more about this. sotomayor's opening statement is pretty businesslike and she's going to apply the law, not make the law. OK then.

the guardian on it, why didn't that work: CIA planned al-Qaida assassinations in friendly countries, officials say

it's even more difficult to sit through when none of it even reaches the level of outright indignation and is put in terms of "troubling" "concerns" that are "unsettling," or Graham's approach that she is going to get confirmed but he just hopes that when there's a conservative nominee everyone remembers how nice and noble he's being about ignoring those "troubling" "unsettling" "concerns," which now he's listing, not because he cares, but just for the record, so people can remember how understanding he's being

These adjectives and phrases reveal Graham's true feelings: he knows not only that defeating her is hopeless, but probably thinks she's quite qualified for the job; but he must send "signals" to his base that he at least mustered token opposition.

George Stephanopopoppoppopolous and the other Sunday morning talking heads were quite clear yesterday: Holder ain't going after memo writers, only "bad apples." This smells like Tower Commission bullshit.

but he must send "signals" to his base that he at least mustered token opposition.

this is any confirmation hearing

Right.

well sure, though the Graham statement in question was fascinating to me more in terms of how it was addressed to other legislators, this statement of overlooking "unsettling" ideological issues and granting her qualification, but doing so with a sort of shruggy listing of what he was overlooking and specific statements that he just hoped other lawmakers would remember this when discussing any conversative nominees with similar "unsettling" ideological background issues -- this was basically just amusing because in Graham's voice is sounds like a mother guilting someone

"No, go ahead, I'll just sit here in the dark alone, but I just hope you remember this when you're thinking about putting me in a home"

p.s., as much as it reassures me that conspiracy theorists are usually paranoid and wrong, it is actually bumming me out a little that the CIA can't manage to carry out a successful covert assassination in Kenya without creating "embarrassment"

Until the Roberts and Alito confirmation hearings (not to mention the Military Commissions Act farrago), I thought Graham was a smart guy who was wrong about a lot of things. Now he's a whiny douche who looks like a buddy's grandmother, and even speaks in high, well-modulated, reasonable tones.

http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/Lindsey-Graham.jpg

hooray, studio b is on and shep is asking all the guests leading questions, that imply these kabuki theater confirmation hearings don't really serve the public interest, or tell anyone anything new. can't say i disagree so far.

he just hoped other lawmakers would remember this when discussing any conversative nominees with similar "unsettling" ideological background issues
i'm still stuck on my theory that, indeed, it's about dems having torpedoed GOP politicians over.. i suppose issues graham considers illegitimate.. not really about sotomayor per se.

what's up with leahy cutting off gillibrand's opening statement w/the gavel when she'd asked for another.. 20 seconds, i believe? that was weird.

i'm still stuck on my theory that, indeed, it's about dems having torpedoed GOP politicians over.. i suppose issues graham considers illegitimate.. not really about sotomayor per se.

to a certain extent, Graham is right! Roberts was exceptionally well-qualified for the Court, and instead of watching this guy make painful baseball metaphors and listening to Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer, the Dems could have simply voted "no" and moved on.

yeah alfred otm. what annoys me is the tenor of all SC nominations where the statements pro or anti and all the questioning pretends that the issue is somehow not political. like it couldn't come down to, "sorry, this guy's a conservative, i'm voting no". i mean, the shit could take five minutes.

fuckin hate the senate.

hmm. i actually didn't take it as involving roberts, i took it as.. part of a larger history of fighting over race/gender related issues, an the gop being aggrieved over them.

schumer was made for the confirmation hearing showboating spectacle

graham tells shep that sotomayor has said some things about the war on terror that he likes & that he'll be asking about tomorrow. really. and for crying out loud i've been paying fairly close attention since she was nominated, and hardly anyone's spent any time on this! it's all the food fight over one comment distorted out of context! gaaah.

SC noms are a fundraising bonanza, the hoopla is not without purpose

indeed, it's about dems having torpedoed GOP politicians

oh obviously! it's just funny, as in just about any confirmation hearing, to watch the nominee have to sit listening attentively as one group of lawmakers talks about how they'll give on this one but they sure hope the other side remembers that when the tables are turned, and the other group of lawmakers talks about how they gave on the last few so they don't want to hear any crap about this one, etc. -- i.e., the usual, unrelated to the actual presence of the nominee and/or issues to be discussed with her

also it is Lindsey Graham, that makes all the difference

They are fundraising bonanzas except in the weirdest meta sense. Participants at these fundraises must know that the best way to get the nominees they want is to elect their candidate president, therefore the theatre just looks more superfluous.

now i AM interested in what gets asked tomorrow if lindsey graham likes sotomayor more than souter on war on terror issues. time to hit the google and see what that's about. seriously everyone loses when the entire discourse is about one comment taken out of context. oh - you're right - except the groups raising money off it.

(off topic but i will never not LOL when shep doesn't like the copy, reads it anyway, and then follows with "that's what it says in the prompter")

yeah there are those specific judicial activist (heh) orgs out there, i must say i don't get the existence of those. but i understand groups whose policy angle is all court-y (NRA, NARAL etc) get a lot of mileage too, esp if they are destined to "lose" the nom fight at present. so cynical.

Sotomayor seems a big believer in "law and order," so it wouldn't surprise me if she supported aggressive responses to terrorism *cue Morbius*

this thread disappeared from site new answers for me

k i made it come back. weird.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/15/sotomayor_day_three

[Jeff Sessions] picked up on some remarks Sotomayor made yesterday, speaking about a Second Circuit court ruling that let a local law banning nunchucks stand; the appeals court, including Sotomayor, had said the Second Amendment didn't limit the ability of states and cities to pass gun (or ninja weapon) control laws. Sotomayor said yesterday that was because the right to bear arms was not "a fundamental right," which seemed to provoke Sessions's wrath.

"I think that's what makes people worry about our courts and our legal system today, and whether agendas are being promoted through the laws, and not strictly what the law says," he said.

Suddenly, Sotomayor -- who has been unfailingly patient throughout the hearing -- interjected, asking if she could expound on her answer. And then she proceeded to give Sessions a lecture that could have come straight out of an introduction to American law class.

"Fundamental is a legal term that I didn't make up," Sotomayor said, still maintaining a steady, polite tone of voice. "It was the Supreme Court's term. It uses it in the context of whether a particular constitutional provision binds the states or not. And so I wasn't using the word -- the panel wasn't using the word in Maloney in the sense of its ordinary meaning."

Sessions tried to reply: "Well, I know you were using the constitutional, legal meaning, but that's hugely important."

And then Sotomayor continued on to explain that she didn't want to get into a debate over whether the Second Amendment binds state and local governments because the Supreme Court is virtually guaranteed to hear a case on that very question sometime soon -- probably with her on it.

"When the court looks at that issue, it will decide is it incorporated or not, and it will determine by applying the test that it has, subsequent to its own precedent, whether or not it is fundamental and incorporated," Sotomayor said. "The Maloney decision was not addressing the merits of that question."

Sessions, apparently, decided to fold. "Alright, well, we'll review that," he said, and moved on to the next topic.

pwnnnnn

i'm all for confirmation hearings turning into televised intro to law class, w/ senators chewing gum, texting, eating egg salad sandwiches packed from home, falling asleep in hoodies, drawing ballpoint portraits of boys they like in spiral bound notebooks.

...Randall Terry being sent to detention...

So I wonder what her views are on privacy and Roe v Wade, and did Obama have someone else ask her if he did not?

what would you guess the political-affiliation breakdown is for senators with some limited background in constitutional law?

I bet you'd be hard pressed to find anyone on that committee who knows much of anything about the law.

at least ten of them went to law school, so i don't think that's true

i know it's righteous and ethical and non-partisan but

So I wonder what her views are on privacy and Roe v Wade, and did Obama have someone else ask her if he did not?

the idea that she just wasn't asked, no-one even tried to get a hint, is INSANE. i liked seeing ginsburg talking about reframing abortion under equal rights rather than privacy, but as that's not on the horizon - sotomayor seemed pretty OK with roe when questioned, saying that it was settled and referring to it under privacy, i think.

haven't really chewed this over but this seemed pretty fucked up:

10:33 a.m. Senator Graham seems to be indicating he may vote for her, after quizzing her and lecturing her during his round.

On the Ricci case? “You missed one of the biggest issues in the country or you took a pass,” he declared.

As for the death penalty and abortion rights: “Have you ever known a Latina woman who supported the right to life?”
Judge Sotomayor quietly said yes.

“Have you ever known a low income Latino family who supported the death penalty?” he asked?
Yes, she responded.

is outside witness testimony time the most useless thing or what?

Have you ever known a Latina woman who supported the right to life?

in exactly what context was this "is the sky blue" question presented?

how many roads, does a latina woman have to walk down, before she supports the right, to life

here

GRAHAM: During your time on the board -- and you had about every job a board member could have -- is it a fair statement to say that all of the cases embraced by this group on abortion advocated the woman's right to choose and argued against restrictions by state and federal government on abortion rights?

SOTOMAYOR: I didn't -- I can't answer that question because I didn't review the briefs. I did know that the fund had a healthcare docket...

GRAHAM: Judge?

SOTOMAYOR: ... that included challenges to certain limitations on a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy under certain circumstances.

GRAHAM: Judge, I -- I may be wrong, but every case I've seen by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund advocated against restrictions on abortion, advocated federal taxpayer funding of abortion for low- income women. Across the board when it came to the death penalty, it advocated against the death penalty. When it came to employment law, it advocated against testing and for quotas.

I mean, that's just the record of this organization. And the point I'm trying to make is that whether or not you advocate those positions and how you will judge can be two different things. I haven't seen in your judging this advocate that I saw or this board member. But when it came to the death penalty, you filed a memorandum with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund in 1981 -- and I would like to submit this to the record -- where you signed this memorandum.

LEAHY: Without objection.

GRAHAM: And you basically said that the death penalty should not be allowed in America because it created a racial bias and it was undue burden on the perpetrator and their family. What led you to that conclusion in 1981?

SOTOMAYOR: The question in 1991...

GRAHAM: '81.

SOTOMAYOR: I misspoke about the year -- was an advocacy by the fund taking a position on whether legislation by the state of New York outlawing or permitting the death penalty should be adopted by the state. I thank you for recognizing that my decisions have not shown me to be an advocate on behalf of any group. That's a different, dramatically different question than what -- whether I follow the law. And in the one case I had as a district court judge, I followed the law completely.

GRAHAM: The only reason we -- I mention this is when Alito and Roberts were before this panel, they were asked about memos they wrote in the Reagan administration, clients they represented. A lot to try to suggest that if you wrote a memo about this area of the law to your boss, Ronald Reagan, you must not be fit to judge. Well, they were able to explain the difference between being a lawyer in the Reagan administration and being a judge. And to the credit of many of my Democratic colleagues, they understood that.

GRAHAM: I'm just trying to make the point that when you are an advocate, when you are on this board, the board took positions that I think are left of center. And you have every right to do it. Have you ever known a low-income Latina woman who was devoutly pro-life?

SOTOMAYOR: Yes.

GRAHAM: Have you ever known a low-income Latina family who supported the death penalty?

SOTOMAYOR: Yes.

GRAHAM: So the point is there are many points of view within groups based on income. You have, I think, consistently, as an advocate, took a point of view that was left of center. You have, as a judge, been generally in the mainstream.

The Ricci case, you missed one of the biggest issues in the country or you took a pass. I don't know what it is. But I am going to say this, that, as Senator Feinstein said, you have come a long way. You have worked very hard. You have earned the respect of Ken Starr. And I would like to put his statement in the record.
And you have said some things that just bugged the hell out of me.

SOTOMAYOR: May I...

GRAHAM: The last question on the "wise Latina woman" comment. To those who may be bothered by that, what do you say?

SOTOMAYOR: I regret that I have offended some people. I believe that my life demonstrates that that was not my intent to leave the impression that some have taken from my words.

GRAHAM: You know what, Judge? I agree with you. Good luck.

yeah, that's what I figured ... seriously, though, the argument that the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund's advocacy does not precisely reflect the beliefs of all Puerto Ricans is sort of an equally "duh" notion, one that -- if it can be imagined to reflect in any way on Sotomayor and not just the way advocacy groups operate, could just as easily be spun in her favor

fuckin lindsey graham

This seems like a good place to share this from the Chicago thread:

And I believe Lindsay Graham would be doing the world a much greater service if he were miniaturized so I could out him up my ass and have my prostate tickled by his final struggle.

― a Gioconda kinda dirty look (kenan), Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Outing him generally would be a good idea, sez my Charleston buddy who sees him in gay bars once or twice a year.

man I ain't been following this thread guys, sorry, but just wanted to pop in and say that pat buchanan on rachel maddow tonight was just, i dunno, listening to the guy's arguments and it's really one of the only times in my life i've felt real, honest pity for someone just because they were so wrong and outdated in their ideas etc.

did Maddow call him out?

Alfred it was so awesome.

It's not posted on YouTube yet :(

It'll be there soon enough. Pat and Rachel's debates are typically fun to watch, but yeah...this time I just felt sorry for Pat because he truly seems lost in the world of 2009. If he could go back to the past, he would in a second.

There are a lot of people who are lost in the world of 2009 tho - that's Pat's audience

It's on the MSNBC site

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/31952924#31952924

Hahahaha:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_SYLvv0oIE

It was good to hear a Republican interested in getting those crack vs powdered coke penalties evened out. Now if they'll only excuse the weight of cardboard in LSD seizures...

rachel maddow is a very composed lady

Judicial Committee approved, Senate will take care of the rest.

That old queen was the only GOP "guy" to vote for her.

Jeff Sessions can cry himself to his grave over it.

so this is over, finally!

Now let's bet on the next one.

We're screwed next time.

i'm still kinda surprised that the disaster that was harrier miers' nomination to scotus was never mentioned during this whole process, at least to my knowledge

somewhere in texas, alberto gonzales is crying into his corona. "I coulda been a contender!"

http://paulbuckley14059.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/alberto-gonzalez.jpg

they drink shiner in tx, m

didn't want to credit al w/having good taste, that shiner bock is good stuff, eh? anyway he's probably a diet pepsi man.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/10/AR2010071002968.html

"She is not only a really nice, gracious person, she hasn't wasted any time at all in going to work and doing her work thoroughly and carefully as a lawyer should," Stevens said in a recent interview, playing down the idea that he serves as an adviser. "If somebody's qualified for this job, they're qualified the day they're sworn in. She's definitely qualified."

She asked 36 questions in the first argument of the term -- more than any other justice -- and was mildy rebuked by Ginsburg for interrupting with a question before counsel had finished with the senior justice's inquiry.

I read that this morning and wondered how many times she met Nino and Ruth for drinks.

Ha. A friend of mine says she has seen Ruth G. at the Signature Theater, outside DC, and that she looks smaller and less healthy each time. She has not seen Nino there. I hear he works late and eventually goes home to his wife and 9 kids, except when he's out at a fancy Italian place. When I read that Sonia liked dancing salsa at family events, I was hoping for her sake that someone would hip her to dc salsa dancing establishments. She's 50-something and single too, right! But she's been just going to the Kennedy Center I see.

According to the latest bio, Nino still smokes in his SCOTUS office!

Doesn't surprise me.

Sotomayor interview:

She said that she welcomed becoming a role model and noted that there had been “a tremendous uptick” in the number of Hispanic groups visiting the Supreme Court. Meeting with them, she said, is “a priority for me.”

But she added that her background did not affect her judicial work. “I don’t come to the process as a woman of color, saying that I have to come to a decision that will help a specific group of people,” she said.

On the other hand, she said she disagreed with Chief Justice Roberts’s approach to cases concerning racial equality. In a 2007 opinion in a decision limiting the use of race to achieve public school integration, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

That approach, Justice Sotomayor said, was “too simple.”

“I don’t borrow Chief Justice Roberts’s description of what colorblindness is,” she said. “Our society is too complex to use that kind of analysis.”

That was, however, the sole suggestion of tension on the court. Much of the balance of Justice Sotomayor’s remarks sought to correct what she called the misimpression that there is animosity among the justices.

“The public sometimes thinks the justices don’t like each other because they read our opinions and see the barbs going back and forth,” she said.

The reality, she continued, was captured in advice she received soon after joining the court from Justice David H. Souter, whom she succeeded. Justice Souter said the key to a pleasant life on the court was realizing that every justice was acting in good faith.

Awwww, how sweet

Bros:

http://www.washingtonlife.com/directories/photos/watermark.php?path=issues/february-2008//lifeoftheparty/images/page_34/pic3.jpg

http://www.oyez.org/sites/default/files/tour/elephant.jpg?1228508660

How Sotomayor undermined Obama’s NSA

kudos!

But no one cares.

Not Obama but some legal commenters do