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President Obama has nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court.
If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would replace Justice David H. Souter to become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the history of the Supreme Court. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.
Conservative groups reacted with sharp criticism on Tuesday morning. “Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written,” said Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network…
Judge Sotomayor has sat for the last 11 years on the federal appeals bench in Manhattan. As the top federal appeals court in the nation’s commercial center, the court is known in particular for its expertise in corporate and securities law. For six years before that, she was a federal district judge in New York…
Born in the Bronx on June 23, 1954, she was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 8. Her father, a factory worker, died a year later. Her mother, a nurse at a methadone clinic, raised her daughter and a younger son on a modest salary.
Judge Sotomayor graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976 and and attended Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She spent five years as a prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney’s office before entering private practice.
But she longed to return to public service, she said, inspired by the “Perry Mason” series she watched as a child. In 1992, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan recommended the politically centrist lawyer to President George H. W. Bush.
It’s not out of line that a traditional conservative Republican appointed her. Her life is a Horatio Alger story – the sort that inspired generations of Americans to aspire for a better life.
Previously approved by two bi-partisan efforts in Congress, no doubt the Party of “NO” will waste a couple of months on preaching their ideology, trying to stop her appointment to the bench.
# 86 Mister Mustard said,
“Had Christ not risen from the dead, he’d be rolling over in his grave.”
I thought I was going to piss myself laughing when I read that.
#100–Rick you idiot==Sotomayor was nominated by Obama NOT BUSH. Look at the calendar to keep your broad brush on the right administration, otherwise, things will get all confused.
# 72 Mr. Fusion said, “Actually, I have it bookmarked.”
You need to read & study it. That way you’ll about stuff like Habeas corpus. You can’t even approach a subject like a SC nomination without knowing the US Constitution. Otherwise, you are not contributing to the conversation.
#103–Patrick==what is the common sense meaning of Fusion having the US Constitution bookmarked????
But I post to disagree with your more substantive point. No one can understand the Constitution by reading it. In fact, such a defective approach is in the main why the Constitution is so poorly understood and subject to pandering as seen uniformily in commentary.
No, the ONLY way to understand the Constitution is to read the USSC cases interpreting it. Sadly, that hardly ever occurs. Too many words.
# 104 bobbo said, “But I post to disagree with your more substantive point. No one can understand the Constitution by reading it.”
You have to read it before you start studying cases. And, no, people understood the constitution before there were any cases to be studied. So, read and understand it, THEN study cases. Many decisions have been utterly defective, many have been correct.
Has any conservative bothered to read the speech where she makes the “latina woman” comment?
She is not, as Fox falsely transcribes, referring to “being a judge” in general. She’s addressing the question of how a justice can evaluate real-world issues of racial and sexual discrimination:
“In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women.”
Hence, she hopes that a Latina woman would have more relevant experience to address such questions than a white male.
You might disagree with that — but it’s hardly the statement conservatives are pretending she made…
# 106 Wretched Gnu said, “Hence, she hopes that a Latina woman would have more relevant experience to address such questions than a white male.”
SO if a white guy was giving a speech and talked about business issues, (most business cases have been argued by white guys)hadd said this:
“I would hope that a wise Anglo man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a latina female who hasn’t lived that life.”
You don’t think dems and liberal wouldn’t try to lynch that judge? Answer honestly.
Patrick —
Race and gender issues are inevitably and necessarily more relevant to a non-white woman’s life than they are to a white man’s.
Business issues are *not* inevitably and necessarily more relevant to a white man’s life more than they are to a non-white woman’s. (Sotomayor’s life being a case in point)
…and I notice you have nothing to say about the fact that the quotation has been completely misrepresented as referring to “being a judge” in general, as opposed to addressing the question we’re talking about.
#108 LOL!
I knew you couldn’t answer the question.
Patrick — My answer was thorough and exhaustive. Yours, by contrast, was just a one-line ejaculation.
There is a difference.
#110, your answer was justification and obfuscation. Yes, there is a difference.
Patrick –
So whan Sotomayor says that a Latina woman’s experiences are “hopefully” more relevant to questions of racial and sexual discrimination than the experiences of a white man’s, you think that’s bigotry?
Most people would just call that common sense.
But then, those people live in the real world, not some conservative’s gated community…
Floyd, Mr. Fusion, my whole point way back at #35 was to point out that those two issues are common knowledge, and to fault Eidard for his ridiculous failure to know the first thing about the situation before he spouted off.
You share that failure. As I said in #35, it’s trivial to look these things up. In case you’re still missing the point, YOU ARE UNINFORMED ABOUT THE ISSUES REGARDING HER NOMINATION IF YOU DO NOT ALREADY KNOW ABOUT THE POINTS I RAISED.
Wretched Gnu, you’re right – the analogy is imperfect. That said, are you really saying, with your stubborn insistence on analyzing the analogy rather than the issue, that you don’t see the racist implications of her comment?
I certainly HAVE read it in context. It was despicable. From where I sit it looks like you’re playing a part in her racism kinda like my grandmother in Jackson, TN played in the racism of her times – passive, unprincipled, self-serving.
Bob —
Despite your protest, I don’t think you read the speech.
Sotomayor says that a Latina woman’s experiences are “hopefully” more relevant to questions of racial and sexual discrimination — *not* to the question of adjudication in general — than the experiences of a white man’s.
You call that bigotry. Ok. But most people would just call it common sense.
Bobbo, actually she was nominated by Bush, in the early 90s as part of a deal for New York judges where the minority gets to nominate a few.
Plus to understand the Constitution, you start with the Federalist papers that explain it.
# 112 Wretched Gnu said, “So whan Sotomayor says that a Latina woman’s experiences are “hopefully” more relevant to questions of racial and sexual discrimination than the experiences of a white man’s, you think that’s bigotry?”
Yes, when speaking as a judge it is.
“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, ”
So what are these physiological differences that give her insight over a white man? This is a firing offense at so many colleges.
# 117 MikeN said, “This is a firing offense at so many colleges.”
Only if you are a white conservative…
MikeN, Patrick —
Don’t worry fellas. The universities don’t matter. The real money and power is still held and protected by the self-perpetuating white-boy country-club banker network. Your self-selecting WASP regime is perfectly safe.
#109, Cow-Patty,
I knew you couldn’t answer the question.
Then why didn’t you answer about those two cases you alluded to earlier. You won’t answer because you made that claim up. On the other hand WG made a quote and explanation.
Idiot.