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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jul 17, 2009 - 12:19am PT
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On the edge, did you miss my previous Soto post?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jul 17, 2009 - 12:25am PT
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So that being said, Sessions is a big Coke fiend, and Bluerring thinks all women are just cumcatchers
OMG!!!!
He said it again. AND Sessions is a coke freak!!!!!
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Jul 17, 2009 - 12:28am PT
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I've skipped some, uh, off color posts so maybe I missed something. The fact of the matter is she ruled against her own race in a case held up as evidence of her bias. That's silly.
And no, nobody joined the case after she ruled, that's legally impossible.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Jul 17, 2009 - 11:02am PT
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Howierd,
You and those of your ilk are making that conclusion based solely on the outcome of the decision which, incidently, was joined by two other white judges.
This is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. Why don't trust a Latina women to be a SC justice, let's look at some things we don't like and work backwards from there. Your comments say alot more about you than they do about Sotomayor.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Jul 17, 2009 - 11:16am PT
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Howie wrote: For THAT reason, she is supremely unqualified to serve. She clearly cannot separate personal views (which she is absolutely entitled to hold) from professional responsibilities.
She has in a number of cases separated her personal views as a number of republican senators stated yesterday.
Bluring...maybe the women you hang with are cumcatchers but your vile and disgusting view of them on a whole just shows what a backwards hillbilly you really are.
What a as#@&%e.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 17, 2009 - 11:32am PT
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Sotomayor Nomination Moves Toward Senate Approval (Update1)
By Greg Stohr and Christopher Stern
July 17 (Bloomberg) -- Judge Sonia Sotomayormoved closer to taking a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court as Republicans softened their criticism and said they expect her to be confirmed before the Senate starts its recess early next month.
Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina all but endorsed Sotomayor yesterday, her last of four days testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Graham said he didn’t view her as an “activist” who would try to impose her values on the country.
“I think fundamentally, judge, you’re able, after all these years of being a judge, to embrace a right that you may not want for yourself,” Graham said yesterday.
Richard Lugar of Indiana today became the first Republican senator to announce support for Sotomayor, saying in a statement that she “demonstrated a judicial temperament during her week- long nomination hearing.”
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the Judiciary Committee’s top Republican and a likely vote against Sotomayor, predicted the Senate would take up the nomination before starting its recess. He said he doubted any member of his party would seek to block a vote on Sotomayor with a filibuster.
The Democrats’ “desire is to confirm her before the August recess, and there is no question that she will be, in my eyes,” said Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah. Democrats control the Senate 60-40.
Rushing the Process
Sessions and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had previously complained that Democrats were rushing the confirmation process. President Barack Obamanominated Sotomayor, a judge on the federal appeals court in New York, on May 26.
Some Republicans would face political difficulties in opposing the court’s first Latina nominee. After losing the 2008 elections, the party is seeking to improve its standing among Hispanics, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. electorate.
Republicans will have to balance that consideration against the National Rifle Association’sopposition to Sotomayor, announced yesterday. The NRA pointed to a Sotomayor decision that refused to apply the Second Amendment right to bear arms to the states. That ruling relied on an 1886 Supreme Court precedent and said the high court should have “the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.”
Words of Support
One Republican senator from a heavily Hispanic state, John Cornyn of Texas, offered words of support for Sotomayor’s judicial record yesterday, even as he questioned some of her speeches and law review articles.
Cornyn, 57, whose home state is 36 percent Hispanic, said Sotomayor’s 17-year record as a trial and appellate judge “strikes me as pretty much in the judicial mainstream.”
Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, which is 30 percent Hispanic, was skeptical in his questioning, asking Sotomayor about her rulings on gun rights and racial discrimination.
Hatch, who voted for all 11 Supreme Court nominees the Senate has considered since he was elected in 1976, told reporters he hadn’t decided how to vote on Sotomayor. Although he supported Sotomayor when she was confirmed to the federal appeals court in New York in 1998, Hatch said he was “troubled” when he cast that vote and isn’t sure he would back her a second time.
“The court of appeals job is different from the Supreme Court,” Hatch, 75, said. “This is the big apple; this is the big time.”
‘Serious Concerns’
Sessions, 62, told reporters he had “serious concerns about the nomination.”
Sotomayor, 55, gave the Republicans little in the way of new ammunition to oppose her nomination. Like previous nominees, she refused to take a stand on questions that she said might come before her on the court, repeatedly assuring senators she would keep an “open mind.”
She backed away from perhaps her most controversial comments, telling lawmakers she regretted saying in speeches that a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences” would make better decisions “than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
Sotomayor also distanced herself from then-Senator Obama’s 2005 statement that the toughest Supreme Court cases “can only be determined on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.”
Republicans Impressed
Sotomayor said she “wouldn’t approach the issue of judging the way the president does.” She added, “Judges can’t rely on what’s in their heart.”
Senate Democratic leaders said Sotomayor’s performance in the confirmation hearings has impressed Republicans and many will support her nomination.
“Some Republicans have spoken to me and said many are leaning her way, feeling she has done extremely well,” Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told reporters. He predicted she would get a “substantial number of Republican votes.”
John Roberts, nominated to be chief justice by President George W. Bush in 2005, received 22 of the 44 Democratic votes. The following year, Samuel Alito received only four Democratic votes.
Ultimately, Sotomayor may get the votes of half of the Senate’s 40 Republicans, said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington.
“She’s done very well,” Thurber said. “It’s going to be a significant number.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington atgstohr@bloomberg.net; Christopher Stern in Washington at cstern3@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: July 17, 2009 11:13 EDT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZrp8dN0PgeQ
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jul 17, 2009 - 11:34am PT
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What a as#@&%e.
I think it's aN as#@&%e, not 'a'...
just sayin'.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Jul 17, 2009 - 11:41am PT
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The strange thing about the hearing is that the republican senators were more concerned about a statement she made then her voting record which they rarely talked about till the end when they conceded that based on that record...she would make an excellent Supreme Court judge.
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apogee
climber
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Jul 17, 2009 - 12:09pm PT
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"...they conceded that based on that record...she would make an excellent Supreme Court judge."
So this past week really was nothing more than political theatre? Damn. I thought for sure that the truth about her being a sheep-loving tranny was gonna come out any day now. Faux News said this was true....what happened?
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Jul 17, 2009 - 01:43pm PT
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If you removed all traces of political grandstanding and posturing, and unrealistic demands for total impartiality (no one is remotely 100% impartial), what are the Sotomayor detractors actually saying? And who gives a sh#t, really, what fat old farts like Graham are sounding off about? What ARE they saying, really?
JL
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atchafalaya
climber
Babylon
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Jul 17, 2009 - 02:20pm PT
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"What ARE they saying, really?"
That Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution dictates a process that is important to the selection of Supreme Court justices (for example, the exclusion of Harriett Miers, Robert Bork, etc.) even if it does not seem to be helpful in vetting Sotomayor?
IMO, her statement that a latino female reaches better results on the bench than white males needed to be explored. Unfortunately, our elected officals make an important process look like another political sham.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 17, 2009 - 02:50pm PT
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Strictly speaking from a Democratic point of view, the hearings
could not have gone better, as regards future voting.
No doubt included in the videos of major network coverages
was the impact on the huge and rapidly growing Hispanic voting
bloc, of white Republicans repeatedly questioning the judicial
qualifications of a Hispanic judge, forget female, Hispanic.
Hispanics voted democrat 65% last November.
These hearings surely will push that figure higher.
IF I was a Republican concerned about being invited to participate in future policy making, and given that Sotomayor was going to be nominated pretty much regardless, a better strategy
would have been to tone down greatly the questioning emphasizing
any words like "racist" or "Latina".
Have a plan, have one Republican Senator ask those questions,
one time only, that is fine, but do not have every single Republican be recorded asking the same questions over and over.
Poor planning, poor execution, but pretty much expected.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 17, 2009 - 03:05pm PT
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The party is still not questioning the effectiveness of the sound byte and the talking point..
And every republican office holder feels their future rests on whipping up "their base."
Ergo we get what we just saw.
Very slow to adapt.
My guess is recognition of these dynamics has figured in to Obama's legislative agenda. He wants them on overload.
Edit:
Charlie may not have surfed, but he was pretty serious about not wanting to be a colony.
But another idea. A rational republican, at this point would not be hewing the Steele line slavishly. They would be experimenting to discover a way out of this mess, perhaps like Arlen Spector, perhaps not.
The ability to do this would be an indicator that the individual has some ability and an interest in solving real problems. (They do have a real problem.)
The present behavior pretty clearly indicates these people are drones and will not be of any use to the US in future.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Jul 17, 2009 - 04:07pm PT
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The irony of all this is that, if her prior record is a reliable indicator, Sotomayor is going to be pretty centrist as a jurist, like a Sandra Day O'Connor or Anthony Kennedy. While judges do have religious conversions when appointed to the Supremes, there's nothing in her record to suggest she's going to be anywhere remotely as left leaning as Souter, the justice she's replacing.
Yet another reason why the Repub's response seems like ethnic paranoia to me.
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Ben Rumsen
Social climber
No Name City ( and it sure ain't pretty )
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Jul 17, 2009 - 05:09pm PT
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She's an anti - gun nut -
Joint Statement
Wayne Lapierre, Executive Vice President, National Rifle Association
And
Chris W. Cox, Executive Director, National Rifle Association - Institute For Legislative Action
On
Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Nomination To The United States Supreme Court
Other than declaring war, neither house of Congress has a more solemn responsibility than the Senate's role in confirming justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. As the Senate considers the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Americans have been watching to see whether this nominee - if confirmed - would respect the Second Amendment or side with those who have declared war on the rights of America's 80 million gun owners.
From the outset, the National Rifle Association has respected the confirmation process and hoped for mainstream answers to bedrock questions. Unfortunately, Judge Sotomayor's judicial record and testimony clearly demonstrate a hostile view of the Second Amendment and the fundamental right of self-defense guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.
It is only by ignoring history that any judge can say that the Second Amendment is not a fundamental right and does not apply to the states. The one part of the Bill of Rights that Congress clearly intended to apply to all Americans in passing the Fourteenth Amendment was the Second Amendment. History and congressional debate are clear on this point.
Yet Judge Sotomayor seems to believe that the Second Amendment is limited only to the residents of federal enclaves such as Washington, D.C. and does not protect all Americans living in every corner of this nation. In her Maloney opinion and during the confirmation hearings, she deliberately misread Supreme Court precedent to support her incorrect view.
In last year's historic Heller decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual's right to own firearms and recognizes the inherent right of self-defense. In addition, the Court required lower courts to apply the Twentieth Century cases it has used to incorporate a majority of the Bill of Rights to the States. Yet in her Maloney opinion, Judge Sotomayor dismissed that requirement, mistakenly relying instead on Nineteenth Century jurisprudence to hold that the Second Amendment does not apply to the States.
This nation was founded on a set of fundamental freedoms. Our Constitution does not give us those freedoms - it guarantees and protects them. The right to defend ourselves and our loved ones is one of those. The individual right to keep and bear arms is another. These truths are what define us as Americans. Yet, Judge Sotomayor takes an opposite view, contrary to the views of our Founding Fathers, the Supreme Court, and the vast majority of the American people.
We believe any individual who does not agree that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right and who does not respect our God-given right of self-defense should not serve on any court, much less the highest court in the land. Therefore, the National Rifle Association of America opposes the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
- NRA -
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America's oldest civil rights and sportsmen's group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation's leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Jul 17, 2009 - 05:10pm PT
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"IMO, her statement that a latino female reaches better results on the bench than white males needed to be explored."
As I said earlier, the aging white male almost single handedly got us into this mess, so it would seem most any other brand of folk can hardly do worse. If the core GOP base is, in fact, crinkled old babyboomers, the entire party are dead men walking.
It's interesting to see the paradigm shifting away from the old whites as being the sole owners of integrity, agency and power. They still growl like they actually have these attributes (ergo, all the GOP grandstanding over vetting Judge S.), but who, outside their own ranks, is really listening?
JL
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 17, 2009 - 05:44pm PT
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The NRA bases their opposition to Judge Sotomayor on a case
in New York State in which a man named Maloney wanted to own
"nunchucks" (Japanese martial arts sticks).
New York state law specifically banned owning nunchucks, in addition to other weapons.
Sotomayor and two other 2nd Circuit judges upheld the state law.
Sotomayor said she simply followed previous case law in ruling on Maloney. But she also noted that it's likely the Supreme Court will take up the issue of whether the 2nd amendment governs all state and local gun control efforts.
"It's an open question," she said.
Sotomayor, and the other Judges, all agreed that they were asked
whether New York had the right to bann certain weapons.
They based their ruling on legal precedent, and declined to
be the "activist" judges the NRA wanted them to be. Clearly,
the NRA wanted the judges to overturn NY State Law.
For upholding state law, when the US Supreme Court had NOT
made clear at the time whether the 2nd Amendment had priority over the rights of cities and states, the NRA opposed her
nomination, as they would oppose the nomination of any judge
who would not support zero restrictions on
the citizens owning any weapon they wanted to.
Visualize your neighbor owning a loaded Abrams tank pointed
at your bedroom, getting drunk and mad.
That would be just fine with the NRA.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Jul 17, 2009 - 06:03pm PT
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The NRA doesn't care about the facts, only about getting their way. BTW, the Heller decision was a horrible one, but unfortunately indicative of what we'll likely to get more of under the Roberts court, particularly as Alito is now on board.
I believe one of the dissenting judges said something to the effect of 'never has so much precedent been disregarded so quickly.' Apparently gun nut didn't like that precedent because it is old case law, but it was still precedent and certainly far newer than the 2nd Amendment. Too bad the Court (on a 5-4 decision mind you, divided along political lines) decided to disregard it.
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Ed Bannister
Mountain climber
Riverside, CA
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Jul 17, 2009 - 06:09pm PT
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not sure how you could ask the question.
"a wise latina woman" better than x, y or z color or sex fill in the blank..
turn it around, what if a scottish white male had said that bringing his experience and empathy to the bench would make him a better judge than a latina???
Obviously a race based statement, intellectual honesty demands the same standard be applied the other way around.
but there is not a lot of that going around lately.
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