Democratic Candidate, United States Senate

Monday, July 27, 2009

U. S. Senate candidate Bob Krause says Grassley opposition to Sotomayer follows pattern of anti-women votes

It was with regret but no surprise that I learned this afternoon of Senator Charles Grassley’s announcement that he will vote against the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Justice David Souter.

Senator Grassley’s vote against Judge Sotomayor is the capstone to a long string of anti-women votes by Iowa’s senior senator.

In combined 2007-2008 alone, he was rated at 40% favorable by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). This is actually his best in years. He was at 33% with AAUW in 2007 and just 10% in 2005-2006, just after his successful re-election. Perhaps next year, which is an election year, his women’s vote rating will improve.

But I am not hopeful of that improvement. On the first significant civil rights bill of 2009, Grassley voted against closing a huge loophole in the equal pay for equal work statute. Had Grassley prevailed it would have remained very easy for large corporations to discriminate on pay to women and get away with it.

Thus, it is not surprising that Senator Grassley’s first vote against a Supreme Court nominee in 29 years is against a woman. Her confirmation is important not only to women and Hispanics, but to all Americans as a reaffirmation of the great melting pot of humanity that is the United States.

It is unfortunate that Senator Grassley has chosen to again follow the party line and put partisanship above the interests of Iowans. I urge Senator Grassley to change his mind and vote “yes” to confirm a well qualified nominee for the highest court in the land.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Monday, July 27, 2009

Contact: Keith Dinsmore

573-230-5360

keith@krauseforiowa.com

It’s the tirade of Wise Latino or Breiterman or who ever he is, that is a “colossal waste of time.”

Sotomayor’s Decision:

Ali Hamdi is a citizen of Tunisia who was residing in the United States. He was arrested for producing fraudulent visas and fake Yemeni birth certificates in his Brooklyn, New York travel agency. He pled guilty to a felony, served 2 years in jail, and was then deported.

On December 19, 2003, Hamdi filed an appeal of his sentence. He must have filed this appeal from a foreign country, and had a U.S. attorney working for him. Hamdi wanted the sentence reduced. Yes, he had already served his sentence, so any sentence reduction would only be on paper. But the shorter his sentence on paper, the more possible that the immigration authorities would exercise their discretion and allow him to be re-admitted to the United States on a tourist visa. It’s called a “discretionary waiver of inadmissibility” under the immigration laws, potentially resulting in Hamdi being re-admitted to the United States as a temporary, non-immigrant visitor (tourist).

This case had already been before a federal district judge, who ruled against Hamdi. Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge, issued a ruling concluding that, yes, there is a specific provision in the immigration law allowing the government the discretion to admit somebody on a tourist visa even if they had been convicted of a felony. She sent the case back to the district court for further proceedings based on her ruling.

My Comment:

Hamdi had already been actively subverting the immigration laws, so I would strongly suspect that once he re-enters the United States on a tourist visa, he will overstay that visa and also begin more activities such as issuing fake visas and fake birth certificates. I would be a fool not to suspect. Therefore, I think no sane U.S. government would ever re-admit Hamdi to the United States.

Tourist visas last 30 or 90 days. Why would anybody trust Hamdi to behave lawfully while in the United States and then to leave the country when his 30 or 90 day tourist visa had expired? The U.S. government still has no way of making sure that people leave the country after their visa has expired. As a federal judge who hears immigration cases, Sotomayor should have known this; if not, she didn’t know her job.

Since no sane U.S. government would ever exercise its discretion to allow Hamdi to enter the country in the future, this entire case is “moot.” “Moot” means “of no importance” or “there is nothing to decide here.” Therefore, Sotomayor should have dismissed the case.

Instead, Sotomayor produced an 8 page, 6500 word decision (this blog is only 1000 words) and then sent the case back down to the district court for even more work. What a colossal waste of time and energy over nothing for somebody who is a criminal alien. The federal courts are overburdened, and whatever resources we have should be directed at more deserving litigants.

Additionally, in a post 9-11 world, it would be the height of government idiocy to allow Hamdi to re-enter the United States for any reason. Hamdi is a Tunisian. Tunisia has a strong Al Quaeda presence and has experienced several terrorist incidents since 9-11. The murderers of Afghan Northern Alliance Commander Ahmed Shah Masood, who operated on behalf of Osama Bin Laden, were both Tunisian. Hamdi was found in possession of 106 fake Yemeni birth certificates. Yemen is the birthplace of Bin Laden and remains potent source of Al Quaeda recruits. The attack on the U.S.S. Cole occurred in Yemen. FBI agents sent there to investigate the attack found the environment to be extremely hostile. One has to wonder what Hamdi was doing as he conducted his immigration forgery operation in Brooklyn, New York. Was it some kind of poorly executed mechanism of implanting sleeper Al Quaeda operatives in the United States by swapping their Saudi, Tunisian, Pakistani, or other nationality for a clean Yemeni identity? It does sound like a poor idea, but then again the Al Quaeda is not a operationally perfect. Whatever the precise circumstances of Hamdi’s visa and birth certificate forgery operation, in a post 9-11 world, the United States simply must deal with that kind of activity harshly and no sane U.S. government would ever use its discretion to let Hamdi enter the country on a tourist visa. Therefore, the case was moot and should have been dismissed. Justice Sotomayor’s absolute ignorance of security concerns raised by the Hamdi case is astounding. Did she get the memo that 9-11 happened? She failed to dismiss the case and thereby stop the waste of her time, the taxpayers’ money, and the time taken away from more deserving litigants.

I’m sure excuses will abound but all I can say is WOW!

1. Any latino/latina that doesn’t agree with the party line latin/dem is a hater.

2. If we do it to them it is o.k. but if they do it to us it is not.

Seems like you have it all worked out. Your as deaf, dumb and blind as “THEY” are. Pathetic.

That said, every body here who keeps slamming the Repubs for using the “wise latina” talking point is only kidding themseleves if they don’t think the Dems would be doing the same if the shoe was on the other side. In the George Bush years, it was the Dems who kept many (to include more than fully qulified American Latino Judges) from gettng any kind of up and down vote. Where were your loud sentimenets then? ans will you cry fowl if the Dems do it again.

So, please spare me the rethoric (and hipocracy if you will), its just politics. Obama has managed to throw us a bone with a American Latino to the SCOTUS…I think he didn’t have a choice. There was growing sentiment about an Obama Administration and its lack to satisfy the voting power (the American lationo) that put him in power. When the Sotomayor vote is over and she gets to the bench, can we then focus on what really matters, thousands of American (black, Asian, Latino etc) not working and in disarray with the economy.

It’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t .

Chavez , is another hater and race baiter. Remember when she was going to be the Labor Secretary under Cheney/Bush but withdrew because of a maid that she hired (sounds like she engaged in her own form of identity politics.) Prior to that she had criticized Zoe Baird (who was set to be the Attorney General under Bill Clinton) FOR THE SAME REASON. The double standards go on and on and on…

…a well that is dark and poisonous…”
Coming from Linda Chavez, that could be interpreted in so many different ways.

There is definitely a double standard. Sotomayor graduated from the best universities in the country with honors, and has more experience as a judge than anybody else on the Supreme Court. Her rulings have been deemed mainstream and she was even initially appointed by a Republican.

But that’s still not good enough. Even if you exclude their criticism of her “wise Latina” comment, they still insulted her by calling her not that smart, tempermental, a bully, and an Affirmative Action pick, as if anybody who gets Affirmative Action is less qualified.

Every minority or woman who was admitted to an Ivy League college in the early 70s was an AA pick because those schools weren’t admitting minorities and women in significant numbers until they were forced to by AA. But they never call a white woman an AA pick even though white women are the largest group of AA beneficiaries.

Even supposedly liberal MSNBC gave Pat Buchanan a platform to smear Sotomayor last night, and today Lawrence O’Donnell asked what it mean tto have an AA pick on the Court.

Funny how they didn’t ask what it meant to have legacy admit Dubya as President. They called Dubya stupid, but they never challenged the fact that he got his degrees based on his family name.

Well, Sotomayor broke the barier for Latinas on the Court amd hopefully it will make things easier for professional Latinas all across the country.