Today was the start of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination hearings. I was only able to catch the opening session on the radio this morning, but I was struck my how the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary committee focused in on remarks made in speeches to law students, while seemingly omitting Sotomayor’s moderate record. For goodness sakes, this woman was appointed to the federal bench by George H.W. Bush, but if you listened closely to some of the more conservative senators, you would think that we were at a hearing for an ultra-liberal, pot-smoking judge from California’s Bay Area. However, in the end, I do think that Judge Sotomayor will be nominated, and even Senator Graham (R-South Carolina) concurred that she will emerge as a Justice “unless you have a complete meltdown.” Sotomayor’s demeanor does not seem to scream “meltdown.” But I’ll let you decide as you listen to her opening statement:
Also worth noting is the work of Presente Action, which is working to get this ad on the air in Florida in some key congressional districts. Rush Limbaugh, along with many of his Republican followers, risk further alienating Latinos with this kind of rhetoric. If you support this message, click here to contribute to the cause.
15 responses so far ↓
1 Anna // Jul 13, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Democrats are sitting by while Arnold sinks this state. Why should I automatically support them? They bailed out Wall St and GM, even though GM went bankrupt anyway.
Furthermore, the GI Bill will not cover private colleges in CA, and the Democratic health care plan will drain money from CA and spend it in other states, some of which do not even have an income tax.
They will keep pulling this crap as long as they think CA is safely Democratic. More people need to register as Independents and make both parties work for their votes.
2 Reyfeo // Jul 13, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I listened to the ad and this is rediculous!
First, Rush ins’t the Republican Leader as the ad implies…again, our own people (Presnte Action) trying to be deceitful
Second, The adds talks to Latinos and Americans, which again, speaks and assumes all Latinos are American Citizens (ie making a distinctuon)…last I remember, Illegal Aliens (ie the Latinos this add talks to) can’t vote much less have a say in all this…gimme a break! And you have the audacity to ask us to pass this crap on if we agree with it…NOOOO!!
Lastly, the meltdown is coming from Democrat Hardcores like Anna who finally see what the Democratic Party really is…liars and politcal whoremongers who are just as bad as Republicans in fullfiling thier campaign pormises.
3 Joe Citizen // Jul 14, 2009 at 10:34 am
As a firefighter I think what she did in the Ricci case is disgusting. As a human being I think the racism is evident. She has accomplished much in her life and has sold her soul to the race hustlers. If you don’t see it than her decisions must favor your race.
4 Joe Citizen // Jul 14, 2009 at 10:36 am
PS- If Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party is Bill Maher the leader of the Democrats?
5 WhatThe.. // Jul 14, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Present Action another latino propaganda machine which distorts the facts to the ignorant masses to further their agenda. Theres nothing more diabolical than that. Great job at cut and paste to make it appear someones racism. What, its in spanish, thus eliminating other non-Latino Americans from understanding the ad, a little racism? Rush Limbaugh, is an entertainer with an opinion. Just like this blog is full of opinions and should remain that way thanks to the first amendment. People form opinions based on what they learn from other opinions, good or bad. Thanks to opinions which are both pro and con, I learn something daily which changes my opinion of others and the world I live in.
6 Anna // Jul 14, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Sotomayor has an impeccable record, and she will be confirmed. Limbaugh, Sen. Graham, Sen. Sessions and these other GOP losers cannot stop it.
7 WhatThe.. // Jul 14, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Ugghhh!!
8 Miss Karma // Jul 14, 2009 at 6:12 pm
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito’s Nomination to the Supreme Court
U.S. SENATOR TOM COBURN (R-OK): Can you comment just about Sam Alito, and what he cares about, and let us see a little bit of your heart and what’s important to you in life?
ALITO: Senator, I tried to in my opening statement, I tried to provide a little picture of who I am as a human being and how my background and my experiences have shaped me and brought me to this point.
ALITO: I don’t come from an affluent background or a privileged background. My parents were both quite poor when they were growing up.
And I know about their experiences and I didn’t experience those things. I don’t take credit for anything that they did or anything that they overcame.
But I think that children learn a lot from their parents and they learn from what the parents say. But I think they learn a lot more from what the parents do and from what they take from the stories of their parents lives.
And that’s why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can’t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn’t that long ago when they were in that position.
And so it’s my job to apply the law. It’s not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.
But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, “You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country.”
When I have cases involving children, I can’t help but think of my own children and think about my children being treated in the way that children may be treated in the case that’s before me.
And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. When I have a case involving someone who’s been subjected to discrimination because of disability, I have to think of people who I’ve known and admire very greatly who’ve had disabilities, and I’ve watched them struggle to overcome the barriers that society puts up often just because it doesn’t think of what it’s doing — the barriers that it puts up to them.
So those are some of the experiences that have shaped me as a person.
COBURN: Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I think I’ll yield back the balance of my time at this time, and if I have additional questions, get them in the next round.
SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Coburn.
9 Miss Karma // Jul 14, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Anna,
Actually I think Hon. Sonia Sotamayor is overqualified.
That old Confederate judicial reject player hater Jeff Sessions got his sorry rear end handed to him today along with Orrin Hatch (via Charles Schumer and Patrick Leahy)
As far as the Ricci case, and this whole notion of “reverse discrimination” it is incredibly ironic how SOME white folks fear the very historical past that they don’t like to talk about nor hear about from Black U.S. Americans.
I hope Ricci does testify. Perhaps he can explain the numerous lawsuits he filed before this last one.
10 Joe Citizen // Jul 14, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Miss Karma,
I guess you think that Judge Sotomayor should be handed the keys and we should all bow to her as she struts past us. Sam Alito did not say that his gender made him better qualified Ms. Sotomayor did. It is so blindly obvious that your opinions appear to be based on race and nothing else. Ricci was flately discriminated against and people like you are attempting to right past wrongs by punishing people of the same race today. You are disgusting. Ricci’s previous lawsuit was justified in that it was a paramount safety concern which was later discovered to be true. I guess a severly dislexic white male doesn’t make as compelling a story as a poor latina female does? Good luck in punishing people alive today for transgressions of the past. Would you mind if we applied this to minorites as well?
11 Professor Y // Jul 14, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Sen. Graham’s questioning of Judge Sotomayor today was offensive and insulting to women of all races/classes. He read comments from a poll some lawyers completed anonymously. For once Jeffery Toubin, CNN Legal Analyst, and I agreed that the comments are ones traditionally and solely used to describe women who behave professionally. And the nerve of Sen Graham offering his suggestion to Sotomayor that she reflect on and think about these comments as she moves forward. By the way Miss Karma is right: Sotomayor is overqualified. Joe Citizen I won’t respond to your ridiculous inappropriate comparison. But if I compare your remarks to Ms Karma or Anna or the blog master you lose.
12 Miss Karma // Jul 14, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Joe Citizen
I should take Professor Y’s route of not responding but your response is beyond laughable if it wasn’t so reflective of critical and evaluative thinking skills
1)Start with looking up the definition of the word SOME in the dictionary.
2) A severly dislexyic white male is just as inspiring as a poor Latina, but RICCI decided that he was denied becuase he was white AFTER he lost the previous lawsuits—in other words HE played the race card (and on the race card, he won). I thought the Republicans hated people who filed multiple lawsuits. Hon. Sotomayor ruled according to FEDERAL LAWS OF TITLE VII –it was the tests genius not the race.
3) You have the chutzpah to ask the following question as it pertains to past wrongs: Would you mind if we applied this to minorites as well?
ROFLMBO!
People of color ARE CURRENTLY paying for past wrongs.(and in some cases dying as was the cases of NYPD officer Omar Edwards, Sean Bell, Fermin Arzu, Tony Rosario, and Hilton Vega to name a short few, and Jordan Gruver) According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, Blacks and Latinos made up 80% of stop and frisks in NYC and according to the Innocence Project, Black Men make up an overwhelmingly majority of those exonerated by DNA evidence. The most recent case in Philadelphia regarding a summer camp group that happened to have a large amount of Black children admission to a swim club…they’re paying the price for what is happening in their community. I hear very few complaints but I sure do hear a number of bs excuses from those forces trying to justify this type of discrimination.
4) When people of color and women have been discriminated against, and decide to take action, the usual responses from some white males have been, “Just find another job,” “It’s being blown out of proportion,” or “why do they have to sue?”
I heard a pin drop when Ricci and company brought this case forward.
Now marinate on that!
13 Joe Citizen // Jul 15, 2009 at 7:49 am
Thats funny Ms. Karma because the wrongs of this country’s past has been righted and changed almost exclusively by an all WHITE Supreme court. Many whites are descriminated against and have violence commited on them but the media doesn’t care and won’t cover that because it doesn’t make a good story. I could name those people but it would be a difficult Google search since little attention is given to them. The Duke Lacrosse case is a great example.
The Ricci case in no way violated Title VII. New Haven’s action did. It is a bad place you and your supporters find yourselves in when you realize that the same laws that protect minoirites in Title VII apply to ALL US Citizens. Wouldn’t it be convient for you if we could exclude whites from equal protection under the law? That you would punish my children for the ugly past is a shame.
14 Miss Karma // Jul 15, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Good God Almighty Joey where in any of my comments do I advocate that White people should be punished based on race or any form of retaliation? BTW My husband would also like to know (he read my previous comments too–and he happens to be White)
Once again Judge Sotomayor ruled that New Haven’s decision was not based on race, but on the validity of the test itself which would have affected all of the applicants regardless of color.
The nine justices in Brown v Board of Ed, are EXACTLY why I said SOME white folks and not ALL white folks (again a dictionary can give you a clear definition of those two words)
Also, thank you for proving my point about the fear of the past wrongs. Let get this reverse racism thing straight once and for all:
If out of nowhere the majority of economic and political power shifted to Blacks or Latinos, they could NEVER top the atrocities committed by the enslavers and colonizers of the past. You nor your children will be packed onto boats and shipped elsewhere, nor be bought and sold, nor will only 3/5 of your children be considered human beings. It is (and has always been) legal for your children to learn how to read, and no, they won’t get hung from the highest tree in the U.S. for doing so. Nor will any others invade our country over “weapons of mass destruction” or support death squads and/or send troops in (as was the case with Grenada and El Salvador in the 1980s)
The exoneration of the Duke Three got a L of a lot more media attention then the NY CENTRAL PARK FIVE. At least the Duke students didn’t get convicted and lose a decade of their lives like the Central Park five–then again their parents had the financial resources to hire attorneys to get to the truth. At least the D.A. was disbarred and at least Donald Trump didn’t take out a full page ad on the lacrosse players advocating capital punishment BEFORE going to trial–and that’s the tip of the iceberg (Google would crash if I went there.)
Furthermore, Blacks and Latinos are charged and sentenced farrrr more harshly epecially when the victim is White, so your comparisons of crime and media coverage are meager.
Joey, your “Croc “News/
Rush Dumaugh/David Fluke/
Tom Tancreepo/O’Reilly Fear Factor cards are mercilessly showing.
There is no cheese for your whine.
p.s. Bill Maher is actually a Libertarian.
15 Rian // Jul 21, 2009 at 8:15 am
Very stupid ad. All Supreme Court nominees should be vetted based on their qualifications. Judge Sotomayor is an intelligent women who can and will defend herself. No one should get a pass on the high court based on ethnicity. I am sure Judge Sotomayor would not want a pass on this basis.
This ad is pandering to ignorant, uniformed base with the goal of unseating Mica.
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