Jolie Rouge

Supreme Court Justice David Souter has announced he will retire at the end of the current term.

The biggest mistake John Sununu ever made was vouching that Souter would be a “home run” for conservatives.

Now, we’ll get an out liberal as opposed to a stealth one.

Is it Harold Koh’s lucky day?

Conservatives in Washington are gearing up for the SCOTUS battle. My legal sources have compiled sketches of Obama’s top three likely picks and their records. Gird your loins:

Elena Kagan

“Dean Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court would be concerning given her complete lack of judicial or appellate experience. She has never been a judge or even argued a case in a court of appeals. It is difficult to see how her experience fundraising for Harvard Law School qualifies her for a seat on the Nation’s high court.

-Dean Kagan has taken positions that are disturbingly out of the mainstream. For example, driven by her view that the “don’t ask; don’t tell” policy adopted by a Democrat Congress and President Clinton is “a profound wrong–a moral injustice of the first order,” she argued that it violates the First Amendment for the United States to withhold funds from colleges that ban the military from recruiting on campus. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected this view.

-It is also unclear that a Justice Kagan would be an adequately independent check on executive excesses. She has argued in favor of greatly enhanced presidential control over the bureaucracy, which is concerning in light of President Obama’s unprecedented centralization of power in the White House.

-Dean Kagan has argued that nominees to the Supreme Court should undergo a searching inquiry into the nominee’s substantive views of the law, and should comment particular issues. If nominated, it will be interesting to see whether Dean Kagan remains faithful to this prescription in answering the Committee’s questions.”


Sonia Sotomayor

“Judge Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court would be very concerning given her hard-left record on the Court of Appeals, where she is recognized by practitioners as one of the more liberal judges.

-Judge Sotomayor’s personal views may cloud her jurisprudence. As Judge Sotomayor explained in a 2002 speech at Berkeley, she believes it is appropriate for a judge to consider their “experiences as women and people of color” in their decisionmaking, which she believes should “affect our decisions.”

-Only just recently, in Ricci v. DeStefano, Judge Sotomayor was chastised by fellow Clinton-appointee Jose Cabranes for going to extraordinary lengths to dispense with claims of unfair treatment raised by firefighters. Judge Sotomayor’s panel heard a case raising important questions under Title VII and equal protection law, but attempted to dispose of the firefighter’s arguments in a summary order, until called out by Judge Cabranes. The Supreme Court has agreed to review the case.

-Substantial questions also persist regarding Judge Sotomayor’s temperament and disposition to be a Supreme Court justice. Lawyers who have appeared before her have described her as a “bully” who “does not have a very good temperament,” and who “abuses lawyers” with “inappropriate outbursts.”

Controversial Video of Sotomayor Surfaces

A video of Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor, reportedly on Obama's short list to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, has come to light (video and transcript via Volokh Conspiracy). Sotomayor stated as follows during a panel discussion at Duke Law School in 2005:

Here is the segment of the video:
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.co...sotomayor.html

Obviously, this video will raise concerns about Sotomayor being an activist judge who wants to make, rather than apply or interpret, the law. In other words, a perfect Democrat nominee. And a Republican nightmare. I wonder how the Great Democratic Hope, Arlen Specter, will react.

I don't think these remarks in and of themselves are a deal breaker for Sotomayor. There obviously is a lot more to the woman than an off-handed comment. Sotomayor obviously was aware that the words were being recorded, and tried to laugh her way out of it.

Said in jest or not, the video sure doesn't help Sotomayor's prospects. To quote another Supreme Court contender, Deval Patrick, as interpreted by Barack Obama, these were words, just words.


Diane Wood

-If nominated to the Supreme Court, Judge Wood will have some substantial questions to answer regarding her judicial philosophy based on her work as a circuit court judge.

Judge Wood’s judicial views have on occasion been far outside mainstream legal thought and appear driven by her personal policy views. In NOW v. Scheidler, she wrote an opinion applying RICO – a statute designed for mob prosecutions – to prevent pro-life activists from engaging in protests. The Supreme Court reversed with Justices Ginsburg’s and Breyer’s concurrence. NOW v. Scheidler, 537 U.S. 393, 402 (2003).

-Judge Wood has betrayed a consistent hostility to religious litigants and religious interests. For example, Christian Legal Soc’y v. Walker, 453 F.3d 853, 867 (7th Cir. 2006), she would have voted to allow a public university to revoke the student organization charter of the Christian Legal Society because it declined to extend membership to homosexuals.

She also authored an opinion refusing to allow prisons to require inmate participation in drug rehabilitation programs that used “explicit religious content,” even where such programs were the only ones available, effectively allowing inmates to refuse treatment entirely. Kerr v. Farrey, 95 F.3d 472 (7th Cir. 1996).”


***

Ed Morrissey: “After the dust settles, the court will be in exactly the same position as it is now, but in the meantime the GOP will have had an opportunity to show Obama as no post-partisan moderate but as a liberal idealogue. Elections do have consequences — and so do appointments.”

Indeed.

William Jacobson in the Green Room: “…ironically, Specter’s defection may give Republicans the ability to filibuster judicial nominees at the Judiciary Committee level, so the nominees never get out of committee.”

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Souter Vacancy III: Obama, Pragmatist?
Matthew J. Franck

The most amusing article of the day on the prospect for filling Justice Souter's seat was the front-pager in the New York Times, "As a Professor, a Pragmatist About the Supreme Court." That's Professor Obama, of course (yes, I know). Reporter Jodi Kantor interviewed the president's former colleagues and students at the University of Chicago law school and tells us the following:

—That his nominee will likely be "a careful pragmatist with a limited view of the role of courts."

—That Obama himself is "a minimalist (skeptical of court-led efforts at social change)."

—That he has "an unwillingness to deal in abstraction."

—That he "does not particularly prize consistency or broad principle."

—That (quoting Chicago's Geoffrey Stone) "if Barack had a free hand to appoint judges without having to worry about confirmations, about politics, that his idea of a great justice would be someone like a Thurgood Marshall."

What are we to make of all this, other than that the Times is serving the White House's aims by trying to paint a word-picture of moderation and an absence of ideology? The quotation from Geoffrey Stone may give the game away, of course, because no one ever accused Thurgood Marshall of pragmatism, minimalism, or a "limited view of the role of courts." I guess Stone didn't get the memo.

But consider the other characterizations in Kantor's article. Consistency and principle are at the heart of all legal reasoning—and arguably "abstraction" is the indispensable tool in their service. Only by de-personalizing the legal issues before them—i.e., by abstracting from the personal qualities or situations of the parties—can judges do justice to them. After all, judges have been called on since 1789 to "solemnly swear or affirm, that [they] will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that [they] will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on [them] . . . agreeably to the constitution and laws of the United States." If that isn't an explicit call for abstraction, principle, and consistency, I don't know what is. And the president isn't drawn much to such things? And this is supposed to be a good thing?

As for Obama's being a "minimalist" who will appoint a "pragmatist," these terms sorely need some fleshing out. The most prominent exponent of "minimalism" on the Supreme Court is Obama's erstwhile Chicago colleague Cass Sunstein, who moved on to Harvard and now works in the White House. At least since his 1999 book One Case At a Time, Sunstein has made the argument that the courts should not press too hard for too much social change all at once. But he argues this chiefly in order to avoid backlashes and to preserve the capacity of the courts to effect social change, regardless of whether the Constitution itself provides a rationale for the change in question. This "minimalism" would more accurately be called "gradualist maximalism"—the accretion of ever-greater power to the judiciary by baby steps, or, to mix metaphors, on the analogy of the frog brought gently to a boil before he notices how hot it's getting. American democracy is the frog; Sunstein's judiciary is the cook. This is not what any traditional understanding of the judicial function would call "minimalism."

As for "pragmatists," haven't we had enough of them? For most of her career, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was called a pragmatist. The label has also been affixed to Justice Anthony Kennedy. What distinguishes these two justices is that they answer to one principle and only one: absolute devotion to government by judiciary, the very opposite of a "limited view of the role of courts." Sometimes O'Connor or Kennedy would cast a "conservative" vote, sometimes a "liberal" one. But the consistent pattern was augmentation of the judicial role and the removal of as many issues as possible from the control of democratically accountable institutions. Judicial power above all other things was the "pragmatist" touchstone. While it may not be transparently "ideological" in ordinary political terms, this is the very opposite of "moderation" in legal terms.

Senators interested in exposing something interesting about President Obama's nominee should not be buffaloed by claims of "pragmatism," a notion that has been no friend to the Constitution or to the rule of law. They should probe the nominee for the very things the president is said—by his friends!—not to be interested in: principle, consistency, and abstraction.

http://bench.nationalreview.com/post...kwNTIwMjBlOGI=

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Judging the Judges
by Ken Connor

The minute Justice David Souter announced his imminent retirement from the Supreme Court, the media began to engage in rampant speculation about who President Obama would nominate and what criteria would guide his dec-ision. Unfortunately, most of the speculation centered on wrong-headed criteria like race, gender, political leaning, and vague notions of empathetic experience.

Questions abound.

How will the President "diversify" the bench?

Will he nominate a member of a racial minority?

Will he nominate a woman?

Will he nominate someone from a unique religious background?

Senator Arlen Specter told NBC that he hopes the President will "choose someone with diversity." "Women are underrepresented on the court," he declared. "We don't have an Hispanic. African-Americans are underrepresented."

There is intense pressure on the President to satisfy this "diversity quota," regardless of whether a candidate is the most qualified for the post.

A new element has also been introduced into the discussion of President Obama's upcoming nomination: empathy. Mr. Obama stated that he plans to nominate a candidate who possesses "empathy and understanding" and "who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives." This rather vague quote is elucidated by President Obama's previous speech to a Planned Parenthood conference in 2007, in which he maintained, "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom [That's code for "My nominee will support abortion on demand."]; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

The criteria identified by Mr. Obama provide a poor found-ation on which to base the nomination of a Supreme Court Justice. Race, gender, and religious background should not determine a person's qualifications to sit on the bench of the highest court in the land. Emphasizing these criteria will only perpetuate the racism, sexism, and religious discrimination he purportedly decries. Injecting race, gender, and religious background into the judicial selection process amounts to little more than "pandering" to voter groups.

Janet Murguia, President of La Raza (a Hispanic-American interest group), acknowledges as much: "There are high expectations because of the turnout we saw in the Latino community. I think [picking a Hispanic] would go a long way to helping the Latino community feel they were recognized in terms of that support."

Supreme Court Justices ought not to be used as a medium of exchange to purchase the votes of special interest groups.

The proper criteria for choosing a Supreme Court Justice are largely ignored by the chattering class; hence, they are often poorly understood by many Americans.

Character

The first criterion involves the candidate's character. Do they have a history of honesty and integrity? Are they incorruptible, unpurchaseable? Can they resist a bribe or attempts by litigants or third parties to exert undue influence? Do they crave the approval of the crowd? Can they handle criticism by the media? Will their head be turned by adulation or their ego wounded by scorn? Are they secure in themselves or do they require validation by others? Do they have the strength of character to subordinate their own beliefs or desires for a particular outcome for the one required by the law? Can they be evenhanded to the litigants that come before them? Can they say "yes" to the poor and "no" to the rich if the law requires it? Conversely, can they say "no" to the poor and "yes" to the rich when the law demands it?

Intellect and Judgment

A second criterion for choosing a Supreme Court Justice has to do with the candidate's intellect and judgment. Does the candidate have the intellectual acumen necessary to understand complex legal and substantive issues? Do they have the intellectual curiosity it takes to unravel arcane issues that span a broad range of subjects? Can they articulate the basis for their decision making in writing? Do they have the judgment that enables them to distinguish the important from the inconsequential? Can they identify the strengths and weaknesses in the arguments advanced by the parties and their colleagues?

Fidelity to the Law

A third criterion for judicial selection has to do with knowledge of, and fidelity to, the law. Does the candidate have a good grasp of a broad range of legal subjects? Do they understand the law and the Constitution? If they don't know the law (and no judge knows it all) are they willing to learn it? Having learned it, will they apply it faithfully?

Judicial Philosophy

Finally, judicial philosophy is a critically important criterion to consider when it comes to selecting a Supreme Court justice. Will the potential new judge respect the other branches of government as the equals of the judiciary? Do they recognize the differences in the roles of the three branches of government? Will they respect those differences and resist the temptation to assume a role that doesn't belong to them. Does the candidate understand that words have meaning and that the Founders and legislators had a particular intent when they penned them? Will they honestly try to discern that intent and interpret and apply the law accordingly? Or will they disregard that intent and accord the words a new meaning that allows them to reach their desired, rather than the required, outcome.

Selecting a justice to serve on the Supreme Court is a weighty responsibility. So is the decision by the Senate to confirm or reject the nomination. Politics should be set aside and a careful analysis of the nominee's suitability to serve should be carried out using appropriate criteria. Americans will live with the consequences of the decisions for decades. We can only hope that the President and the Senate are up to the task.

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Obama Weighs Wide Range of Candidates for Court
Caren Bohan

Reuters Washington - U.S. President Barack Obama sought advice from congressional leaders on Wednesday as he pondered a broad group of candidates for a Supreme Court opening ranging from judges to a member of his Cabinet.

Under consideration are several women, including Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who argues for the government before the Supreme Court and two U.S. appeals court judges, Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Wood, according to a source familiar with Obama's thinking.

Also in the mix are Michigan Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Many analysts believe Obama will be inclined to add a second woman to the nine-member court.

The source said California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno was being considered as well.

Appointed for life, Supreme Court justices decide such divisive issues as abortion rights and the death penalty. The court even decided the 2000 presidential election.

The nominee will succeed David Souter, who is retiring from the high court. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority and the new justice is unlikely to change that ideological makeup.

Obama is expected to announce his choice in coming weeks to provide the Senate plenty of time to consider the nomination in hopes of seating the new justice by the time the court begins its next session in October.

Obama sought advice from two senior Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, as well as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Jeff Sessions, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

The meeting was the latest in a series of consultations he has held with senators. One of his aims in the discussions is to urge a toning down of the partisan atmosphere that typically surrounds nominations to the Supreme Court.

Seeking Quick Confirmation

After the meeting, Reid told reporters he expected a decision soon. Sessions said afterward that Obama gave no indication his announcement was imminent, but "my impression was he doesn't want to let it take too long."

Reid said they discussed how quickly the Senate Judiciary Committee would be able to consider the nomination and that Obama wanted a nominee "who can get through the Senate as quickly as possible."

Republicans want judges who will strictly interpret the U.S. Constitution. Obama's recent statement that he would like a nominee "empathetic" to the concerns of everyday Americans worried some Republicans.

"I thought empathy implied you were on somebody's side before you heard the case. We did have a discussion about the importance of following the law and not acting like a legislator on the bench," McConnell said.

Leahy said that since Obama was a constitutional law professor, "he understands as well as anybody who is a good judge."

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Sotomayor nominated to high court — first Hispanic
Ben Feller And David Espo, Associated Press Writers
29 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama chose federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, praising her as "an inspiring woman" with both the intellect and compassion to interpret the Constitution wisely.

Obama said Sotomayor has more experience as a judge than any current member of the high court had when nominated, adding she has earned the "respect of colleagues on the bench, the admiration of many lawyers who argue cases in her court and the adoration of her clerks, who look to her as a mentor."

Standing next to Obama at the White House, Sotomayor recalled a childhood spent in a housing project in the Bronx as well as her upper-echelon legal career: "I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government."

Barring the unexpected, Senate confirmation seems likely, given the large Democratic majority. If approved, she would join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the current court, the third in history. She would succeed retiring Justice David Souter.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., issued a statement saying he looked forward "to working with both Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to confirm Judge Sotomayor as the first Hispanic and the third woman to sit on the court."

Senate Republicans pledged to give her a fair hearing, and some questioned whether she would base decisions on her personal feelings, rather than constitutional principles. Given her background, any effort to filibuster her nomination could carry political risks, since Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the population and an increasingly important one politically.

Sotomayor would be unlikely to alter the ideological balance of the court, since Souter generally sides with the liberals on key 5-4 rulings. But at 54, she is a generation younger that Souter, and liberal outside groups hope she will provide a counterpoint to some of the sharply worded conservative rulings.

Introducing his choice, Obama said, "Along the way, she's faced down barriers, overcome the odds and lived out the American dream that brought her parents here so long ago."

The president called on the Senate to confirm Sotomayor before the court begins its new term in October, and noted pointedly that she has already won Senate approval twice in her career. Seven of the Senate's current Republicans voted to confirm her for the appeals court in 1998.

She was nominated a federal judge by a Republican, President George H.W. Bush, then elevated to the appeals court by a Democrat, Bill Clinton. Senate Republicans slow-walked her confirmation more than a decade ago, in part because she was viewed even then as a potential pick for the Supreme Court.

The White House announcement ceremony was a picture of diversity, the first black president, appointing the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, who is white.

Sotomayor's nomination opens a new phase in the drive to replace Souter, as liberal and conservative groups alike scour the record she has compiled in 17 years on the federal bench.

In one of her most notable decisions, as an appellate judge she sided last year with the city of New Haven, Conn., in a discrimination case brought by white firefighters. The city threw out results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough. Coincidentally, that case is now before the Supreme Court.

That ruling has already drawn criticism from conservatives, and is likely to play a role in her confirmation hearing.

In one of her most memorable rulings as federal district judge, in 1995, Sotomayor ruled with Major League Baseball players over owners in a labor strike that had led to the cancellation of the World Series.

Obama referred to that in his remarks, then joked he hoped her support for the Yankees would not unduly influence New Englanders to oppose her in the Senate.

Among them is Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said, "The American people will want the Senate to carry out its constitutional duty with conscientiousness and civility."

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, issued a statement saying it will be up to the Senate to determine "if Ms. Sotomayor understands that the proper role of a judge is to act as a neutral umpire of the law, calling balls and strikes fairly without regard to one's own personal preferences or political views." That harked back the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, who likened the job of a judge to that of a baseball umpire.

In his remarks, Obama made no mention of his earlier statement that he wanted a justice with empathy, although his remark that compassion was needed came close.

Sotomayor grew up in New York after her parents moved from Puerto Rico. She has dealt with diabetes since age 8 and lost her father at age 9, growing up under the care of her mother in humble surroundings. As a girl, inspired by the Perry Mason television show, she knew she wanted to be a judge. She is divorced with no children.

A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, a former prosecutor and private attorney, Sotomayor became a federal judge for the Southern District of New York in 1992. She became an appeals judge in 1998 for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers New York, Vermont and Connecticut.

At her Senate confirmation hearing more than a decade ago, she said, "I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it."

Obama's nomination is the first by a Democratic president in 15 years.

One conservative group did not wait for the formal announcement. Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network, issued a statement calling Sotomayor a "liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written."

Abortion rights have been a flashpoint in several recent Supreme Court confirmations, although Sotomayor has not written any controversial rulings on the subject.

As a federal appeals court judge in 2002, she ruled against an abortion rights group that had challenged a government policy prohibiting foreign organizations receiving U.S. funds from performing or supporting abortions.

In her opinion, Sotomayor wrote that the government was free to favor the anti-abortion position over a pro-choice position when public funds were involved.

Sotomayor has spoken about her pride in her ethnic background and has said that personal experiences "affect the facts that judges choose to see."

"I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging," she said in a speech in 2001. "But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."

From the moment Souter announced his resignation, it was widely assumed Obama would select a woman to replace him, and perhaps a Hispanic as well.

Obama came to office at a time when several potential vacancies loomed on the high court. Justice John Paul Stevens at is 89, and Ginsburg recently underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_supreme_court

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Identity politics triumphs.

“Judge Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court would be very concerning given her hard-left record on the Court of Appeals, where she is recognized by practitioners as one of the more liberal judges.

-Judge Sotomayor’s personal views may cloud her jurisprudence. As Judge Sotomayor explained in a 2002 speech at Berkeley, she believes it is appropriate for a judge to consider their “experiences as women and people of color” in their decisionmaking, which she believes should “affect our decisions.”

-Only just recently, in Ricci v. DeStefano, Judge Sotomayor was chastised by fellow Clinton-appointee Jose Cabranes for going to extraordinary lengths to dispense with claims of unfair treatment raised by firefighters. Judge Sotomayor’s panel heard a case raising important questions under Title VII and equal protection law, but attempted to dispose of the firefighter’s arguments in a summary order, until called out by Judge Cabranes. The Supreme Court has agreed to review the case.

-Substantial questions also persist regarding Judge Sotomayor’s temperament and disposition to be a Supreme Court justice. Lawyers who have appeared before her have described her as a “bully” who “does not have a very good temperament,” and who “abuses lawyers” with “inappropriate outbursts.”



And here’s the rundown on Obama’s SCOTUS choice from Wendy Long at the Judicial Confirmation Network: http://www.judicialnetwork.com/



Legal analyst Stuart Taylor sums up this p.c. pick: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmag...ngargument.php


Obama praised Sotomayor in his announcement for having “saved baseball” and read Nancy Drew as a young child. The White House is pushing the “compelling personal story” angle hard.

There are murmurs of filibuster threats by the GOP.

Alas, those are idle threats, as all the GOP’s past filibuster threats have been over the past year.

Mark my words.

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Hey, Claire McCaskill: Meet Clarence Thomas
By Michelle Malkin • May 26, 2009 11:29 AM
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/05/26...arence-thomas/


On Fox News Channel this morning, Sen. Claire McCaskill dutifully read her “compelling personal story” talking points and hyped Sonia Sotomayor’s compelling personal background while whitewashing her legal record. (RCP Video has the clip here. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...xperience.html )

Incredibly, McCaskill was not aware that Sotomayor had said
When FNC anchor Jane Skinner asked her about Sotomayor’s words, McCaskill tried to claim that someone else had made the statement.

Is Sen. McCaskill that clueless or that deceitful?

The Democrat senator went out to claim that the Supreme Court has no members who have grown up in poverty and overcome extreme hardships.

“That’s something new,” McCaskill argued.

I suggest she read Justice Clarence Thomas’s memoir before she open her mouth again.

Once again, Democrats send the identity politics-marinated message that the experiences and “compelling personal stories” of minorities don’t count if those minorities stray from the liberal plantation.

Celebrate diversity — as long as you pledge allegiance to the Left for life.

***

Drinking game: If you take a shot every time you hear the phrase “compelling life story” today, you should be out by lunch.

The Anchoress rips the Lifestyle Network-flavored coverage of the SCOTUS announcement today. http://www.firstthings.com/blog_entr...tus-1243352369

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

SurferGirl

It seems like BHO will always find the most liberal people he can find and it looks like he is intentionally looking for people that are racist.

In the case of the firemen that studied and did well on the test I think it was very unfair what the city did to them and I felt that the new possible supreme court justice was a racist.... bigot......hater.
Do you liberals like it when those words come back to haunt you?

Racism even if it's reverse racism is wrong.

Bahet

Dear Diary,

The end must be near. I agree with Surfergirl. Run for your lives people!! The sky is falling!!

Seriously, her decision against the firefighters ticked me off. Imagine if a group of black firefighters passed and the city threw it out because they didn't have enough whites pass. There would be a riot. If some court justice then had the lack of brain cells to tell the black firefighters that it was perfectly ok for the city to not hire them in favor of a less qualified white person well I shudder to think what the result would be.

pepperpot

In a fire when my family or I need saving, I don't care what color or church they go to.....only that they passed the test......and can do the job.

When my government hires, I don't care what color they are or what church they go to....just that they passed the test and can do their job........

__________________
Mrs Pepperpot is a lady who always copes with the tricky situations that she finds herself in....

anothersta

This has been going on in St. Louis for 40 years, nothing new to me. My father was one of the main opponents of it.

Now, it's so bad that someone was promoted to Captain. Nevermind they had to take the test in a quiet room because they have A DD. If I lived there, I would just pray she isn't the Captain that shows up if my house was on fire.

It went through the courts several times. There was a thing where they couldn't hire a white firefighter if they didn't have a black one that passed the test, and number 50 on the list would be bumped ahead of number 2 if number 50 was black (number 2 was white) and they needed a black person. My dad missed the Chief promotion 2 or 3 times because there wasn't a black person who'd passed the Chief's test. He and some others brought a lawsuit and he finally got promoted.

What I never understood was this. And, being one of the first women engineers 25 years ago, I totally understand being a minority. I was one of 5 in the country. I wasn't the first. There were 4 women who paved the way for me. And the company that hired me, hired more women when they could. Some good, some not so good. But, I took it as quite a compliment as I paved the way in that company.

I never wanted to get bumped ahead of anyone else. We took the same test, we had the same classes in preparation, we got what we got.

Yes, I got my certification, first time

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If you can't get to DC on 9/12, come on down to Quincy! http://www.quincyteaparty.com