Female Hispanics Causing Judicial Panic

Numerous Democratic members of Congress are calling for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down from the Court and follow Stephen Breyer into retirement so as not to give Donald Trump a chance to possibly name a fourth Supreme Court member, which should give one an idea of how confident Democrats are in a Biden re-election victory (they're obviously not!). 

Sotomayor, the only Roman Catholic member of the Court who's not a stooge of Leonard Leo, is only 69, younger than some of the justices in the conservative bloc.  But she is diabetic, and some folks in Washington suspect that she won't live too long beyond the biblical threescore and ten and thus want to to go gently into that good night now.  This angered commentators on MSNBC, who said that you should never tell an Hispanic woman what to do.  

I'm glad they feel that way, because now they have to eat their words when they realize that they can't tell Judge Aileen Cannon - who was born in Colombia - what to do with regard to the Trump classified-documents case she's "overseeing."

Judge Cannon ruled that, given the sensitive nature of some of the documents to be offered as evidence in the government's case against Trump and some other technicalities a more experienced judge could handle in days, the trial in the classified-documents case should be postponed indefinitely.  That ended any hope of the most important and most slam-dunk case against Trump going to trial before Election Day.  And if Trump wins in November, he'll handle the case against him the same way he plans to deal with his opponents in government and the media - he'll make it go away permanently.  

Justice Sotomayor, a stalwart of the Supreme Court's ever-shrinking liberal wing, has shown no sign of slowing down after fifteen years on the High Court and shows no sign of her diabetes getting the best of her - even as fears of a second Trump Presidency are getting the best of her fair-weather friends in Washington.  They should leave her alone.  As for Judge Cannon, they have to leave her alone - because there's no recourse for handling her incompetence and obvious and odious pro-Trump favoritism.  We're stuck with her.

One good thing has come out of Judge Cannon's service on the federal bench - it proves what bunk race-based and ethnicity-based diversity is.  (Most people probably don't even know she's Hispanic, given her Scotch-Irish surname.)  Because Judge Cannon proves that women and people of racial and ethnic minorities can be just as stupid and dangerous as white men, as U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is black, proves every day with his sycophancy to Trump.  Justice Sotomayor has spoken of the value of the perspective of a "wise Latina."  All good and fine, but what about the perspective of a dumb Latina like Judge Cannon?

Liberal Leanings

It appears that, after tonight, Arkansas will no longer be the Land of Lincoln. U.S. Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln, a Democrat who's undoubtedly one of Stephen Colbert's favorite Republicans, is running scared and running scarred in her runoff primary against Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, whose insurgent campaign has been fueled by anger against Senator Lincoln for opposing the public health insurance option in the new health care reform law. Although she is an establishment Democrat running as a moderate in a rightward-leaning state with the backing of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the left has had enough of her and is ready to send Halter to the Senate so he can deliver the change we can believe in.

But he has to get past Republican nominee John Boozman in November first. On November second. ;-)

Speaking of liberal leanings, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is proving to be a reliable liberal vote on the Court. She supported requiring police to obtain a waiver in relation to reading a suspect his Miranda rights, where she was on the losing side of a 5-4 decision, and she was on the winning side of a 5-4 opinion holding that it is cruel and unusual punishment to impose a life prison term without possible parole on an juvenile offender who did not commit murder. these are just two examples. More are available in this article from the Los Angeles Times.

While Sotomayor is making her presence felt on the Court, she can only go so far with a conservative majority to deal with. I noted with interest Sotomayor's recent return to the Bronx, where she visited her old Catholic elementary school, visited a housing project renamed in her honor (wouldn't it have been better to name a courthouse for her?), and spoke at the commencement ceremonies of Hostos Community College, fresh from dissenting against the Supreme Court decision that gutted Miranda rights.

"We celebrate with you today," Sotomayor said to the Hostos graduates, "with a full understanding of what you have achieved and we are filled with joy in your success. You will breathe life into the dreams of the next generation. You're the generation that followed me and your children will follow us. And together we're going to make this a better world."

Make a better world? Not going to happen, so long as this wise Latina has to deal with those dumb goombahs from Jersey.

Sonia's In!

Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the 111th U.S. Supreme Court Justice in the Senate by a a vote of 68 to 31, with Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) absent and nine Republicans voting in favor, many of them - George Voinovich of Ohio, Mel Martinez of Florida, Kit Bond of Missouri - leaving the Senate when their terms expire at the end of next next year. Senator Lindsay Graham was among the Republicans who voted for Sotomayor, which doesn't surprise me - a former military lawyer, Graham is a grown-up when it comes to these things. So are Maine's to Republican female senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

Most Republican senators, even those representing states where the Hispanic population is growing by leaps and bounds, voted against her on the grounds that her past liberal rulings and her involvement with ethnic activist groups would influence her decisions. Personal perspectives and the influence of her own ethnic background were somehow considered far more troubling than a Chief Justice who neglected the fact that the deed to his house was illegal because it forbade the sale of his house to blacks and Jews.

Republicans, having already ticked off Hispanics by making Sotomayor sound like some wild-eyed left-wing Latin militant with a bias against whites, have shrugged this off as their most virulent allies go after health care reform by sending thugs to derail the discussion of the issue at congressional town hall meetings. A lot of them are bringing placards depicting President Obama as Hitler and hanging Democratic politicians in effigy, and the Republicans say little if anything against it. Many of these people, already ticked off with the idea of a black President, are apparently ticked off with the idea of a health care plan that could actually help . . . other people!

The far right didn't get into the corridors of power in the last election. Now they're trying to get in by breaking the door down.

Hair Raising

It's time to do away with public Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Sonia Sotomayor spent the entire week giving perfunctory, noncommittal answers to rehearsed questions from senators trying to please their base. Everyone was playing not only to their strengths, but to the cameras as well. This has been standard procedure for roughly twenty years, after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork expressed honest, learned and intellectually stimulating though fundamentally repugnant views about jurisprudence and got his nomination handed back to him in the form of a rejection. Since then, these hearings have been all about talking a lot an saying nothing . . . on both sides of the table. (The Clarence Thomas hearings were the exception to this post-Bork posturing, but for all the wrong reasons.)

At one point, one senator - I believe it was Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter - asked Sotomayor the one interesting and original question of the hearings. That was whether she, as a Supreme Court justice, would recommend television cameras used in the Court's proceedings. Great - more denigration of the Court. The Court is already trivialized by some of the cases they've handled, references to the justice as the "Supremes" (as if they were a pop group), and Clarence Thomas's mere presence on it. Do they have to have televised proceedings? Do we want to see Chief Justice Roberts play to the cameras? Televised courtroom proceedings are vulgar; they're voyeuristic, creepy, and overblown, as anyone who remembers the O.J. Simpson murder case or has ever watched Court TV on other occasions knows.

To image how the Supreme court would function on C-SPAN, just consider Supreme Court confirmation hearings in the Senate, and how wonderfully they've worked. We need less, not more television coverage of our judicial system. When the interpretation of the law is at stake, we need public servants to talk to each other, not to a TV audience crying to be pandered to.

So I suggest we stop televising Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings. And when they get behind closed doors, then Amy Klobuchar lets her hair hang down . . . oh, wait a minute, I'm getting this confused with a Charlie Rich song . . . anyway, when they get behind closed doors, then Amy Klobuchar, Jeff Sessions, Patrick Leahy, John Cornyn and all the rest can ask someone like Sotomayor all the relevant questions they should ask - and the nominee can actually give honest answers - all without the distraction of live TV.

One good standard has survived the Bork hearings, however. Someone in my family (I won't say whom) complained about Sotomayor's appearance and said she should have gotten her hair done. Gee whizbangers, she's trying for a Supreme Court justiceship, not a movie role! I'm glad Supreme Court nominees don't physically make themselves over, just as Bork rejected advice to shave his beard. We don't want judges, lawyers, and the rest spending more time on personal appearances than on cases. After all, Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark gave as much time to preparing her hair as to her case, and look how that turned out.

Wise Latinas and Foolish Honkies

Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings for her Supreme Court appointment begin today, and although Republicans lack the votes and power to stop her, they hope to gain some political clout with the American people by depicting her as a judge out of the mainstream and prone to decisions that place her out of sync with the American public.

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is still irked by her "wise Latina" comment. "She has criticized the idea," the dumb cracker said, "that a woman and a man would reach the same result. She expects them to reach different results. I think that's philosophically incompatible with the American system."

Republican opposition to Sotomayor is now being seen as less based on her Hispanic background, however, than her moderate, slightly left-leaning judicial philosophy. As E.J. Dionne explained in his column today, the right is now emboldened by a conservative majority now on the Court bent on overturning years - decades, even - of judicial precedent in favor of an agenda that favors wealthy and powerful interests. Sotomayor will not change the balance of the Court, but in the possible scenario of a conservative justice retiring or dying, the GOP wants to make opposition to Sotomayor a test run for stopping an Obama Supreme Court nominee who really could upset the balance of power against the right.

Dionne has noted that the "conservatives" have made radical breaks with precedent, while Sotomayor's rulings on the lower courts reflect a desire to conserve it. Maybe a wise Latina would, in some cases, reach a better decision than a white male. She certainly would reach a better decision in any case than a black male if the black male in question is Clarence Thomas. But this fight the Republicans are waging is not about suspicion of Latina judge. It's about fear of more wise judges like Sotomayor, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, joining the Court and stopping the current Gang of Five from turning the judiciary into a pocket of the vested interests that make America a meaner place for the rest of us. The GOP wants us to believe that their radical right-wing judicial agenda is good for the country, and they hope to use these hearings to persuade more people to buy that.

As for Jeff Sessions, his gripes are more likely personal than political; I only need to remind you that he's likely still bitter about his failure to get a federal judgeship when, after appointed to one by Ronald Reagan in 1986, he was rejected by the Senate. When Sessions finds offense in Sotomayor's assertion that a wise Latina would make a better decision than a white male who hasn't lived the same life, he's the hypothetical white guy she's most likely talking about.)

More News

I don't know what to make of the Supreme Court ruling overturning the decision by the city of New Haven, Connecticut, to throw out tests given to firefighters because not enough blacks scored high enough. Several blacks did rather well among the 56 firemen who passed, but only nineteen promotions were available, and most of the firemen who scored well enough for promotions were white. So the test was thrown out. But the test was impartial, and it was designed by an outside firm that probably had no idea of the new Haven fire department's demographics, so the conservative majority's reinstatement of the tests was the correct decision, right?

Well, not if you listen to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who sympathized with the white firemen but said they had "no vested rights" to be promoted, or Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, who called the ruling in this case "cramped and wrong."

So why was it wrong? That's what I want to know. The test might have been flawed, the pool of applicants might have titled too much in favor of one racial group. . . . I can't get a handle on it because much of the attention on this case focuses on the fact that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who has been selected by President Obama to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. She was one of the judges who let the original decision by the city of New Haven stand in a lower court - based on procedure and, again, without explanation of the merits of the case. Sotomayor was doing exactly what a judge should do - she based her decision on restraint and precedence. Instead, right-wing critics have carped on her decision because she discriminated against white firefighters and therefore has racist attitudes towards Anglos. Never mind that one of the plaintiffs was Hispanic, like Sotomayor, and one of her colleagues, Judge Jose Cabranes - a Hispanic who almost got the Supreme Court seat that went to Stephen Breyer - criticized her decision on the merits of the case.

Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee that will decide Sotomayor's appointment have expressed concern over work she did for a Puerto Rican rights group. Because it's a liberal activist organization? No, probably because it's Puerto Rican. Sotomayor has been under fire for saying that she has an advantage of being a "wise Latina" with better experience in some cases. But white male Republicans are ticked off with her not because she's wise. It's because she's a Latina. (Rush Limbaugh dismissed her for belonging to an all-female legal group, accusing her of sexism as well as racism. Then he said something about her cleaning up the trash after the meanings.)

Expect Republican senators Mitch McConnell and Jeff Sessions to play up the Puerto Rican card and derail the Sotomayor nomination. Their respective states of Kentucky and Alabama are not known for having large Puerto Rican populations, so they have nothing to lose.

Meanwhile, we go from a thriller to a shiller - right after Michael Jackson's death, television pitchman Billy Mays, also fifty years old, died of a heart attack. Well, he was an overexcited type . . ..

Loathing and Marriage

Dick Cheney has been appearing so much on television talk shows these days, people think he's considering a presidential run in 2012.

What would he run for, the excitement? With his heart? Why would he run, because of his excellent chances of winning? With a nineteen percent popularity rating?

And why would her suddenly endorse gay marriage, given the opposition to gay marriage among the Republican base? Since his daughter Mary is a lesbian, what stopped him from endorsing it in 2004? Oh, wait - Karl Rove.

Then again, the first caucus is in Iowa, and the first primary is in New Hampshire, both states as of today having legalized gay marriage. New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed the bill making it legal in the Granite State today.

Nonetheless, we may have a pretty hard time accepting Cheney as an avuncular figure of trust, like Walter Cronkite.

Incidentally, this leaves Rhode Island - the place once described in the seventeenth century as a moral sewer by Massachusetts Puritans - as the only New England state not to allow gay marriage. Several attempts to change that have failed.

Meanwhile, putative presidential possibility Newt Gingrich says that maybe he was too strong in calling Judge Sonia Sotomayor a racist. Oh - now he tells us!

Disorder In the Court

Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court, is under fire for her comment from 2001 that she thought a wise Hispanic woman with her background could make a more informed judicial decision than a white male jurist without a similar background. Although Sotomayor has sought to clarify her statement, explaining that she meant to say her upbringing gives her a unique perspective on the bench, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich have called for her to withdraw her nomination.

This remark was unearthed just as the Supreme Court is about to visit a case in which eighteen white firemen scored high on promotional tests but had their results rendered moot because not enough blacks scored high. Sotomayor was part of three-judge panel that let the ruling stand on technical grounds without comment. The Court is likely to overturn the decision, and it will likely ignite a debate over affirmative action.

Sotomayor may very well be enduring unfair treatment due to the fact that, while flame throwers like Limbaugh, Gingrich and Sean Hannity have the opportunity to mouth off on the issue of the Sotomayor nomination every day, Sotomayor herself hasn't been given enough opportunity to make a case for herself. Though her comments and this ruling has drawn blood, I still expect her to be confirmed. It helps that she's as wise as the hypothetical Hispanic woman of which she spoke, while the white men she's angered are fools.

Brent Wilkes?

Recently, Brent Wilkes, spokesman for the League of United Latin American Citizens, came out in favor of the appointment of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

I couldn't believe it.

A Hispanic rights organization has a guy named Brent Wilkes as its spokesman?

Brent Wilkes?

Sort of having a guy named Stanislaw Romanowski as a spokesman for the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

Brent Wilkes?

Sotomayor's Paper Trail

Among the rulings of designated Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor:

She upheld the rule prohibiting foreign family planning organizations receiving federal money from performing or supporting abortions.

She threw out claims by white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut that they were discriminated against they hadn't been promoted because black firemen had not qualified. This case goes to the Supreme Court next month.

She ruled in favor of prison inmates practicing the Santeria religion (a faith I only heard of today!) who sued wishing to have the right to wear religious beads in jail. This puts her in line with Samuel Alito, who as a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, upheld the rights of Muslim policemen to keep their long beards. Sotomayor also struck down a ban on a Hannukah display in a public park in White Plains, New York.

She supported environmentalists in ruling that the Clean Water Act does not allow cost to be considered in deciding to how ensure clean water.

She sounds mainstream to me. She's a liberal, yes, but certainly not the second coming of William O. Douglas. Republican senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, no liberal, sees no major hurdles for Sotomayor. Nevertheless, I fear that some right-wing groups will try to smear her. I especially fear that morons like Sean Hannity will make Sotomayor look so radical, people will think she belonged to Omega 7.

In fact, abortion opponents are already at it. Despite her ruling supporting the right of the federal government to have a "gag rule" on abortion - a position also favored by David Souter - the anti-abortion group Americans United For Life called her "a radical pick that divides America." Thus once again, when it comes to intelligent debate on public issues and on the role of the judiciary, America is the remedial student in a classroom full of valedictorians.

It's Sotomayor!

President Obama made a less than surprising choice for the Supreme Court today with Sonia Sotomayor, a Latina jurist who has served as a prosecutor, corporate lawyer, trial judge and an appeals court judge. She also was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

As the daughter of a poor Puerto Rican family from the South Bronx, Sotomayor is a slam dunk for Obama, and not just because she is the first Hispanic appointee as well as the third female appointee. She has very little in her background to indicate that she would be a far-left activist jurist, except that she would take people's personal life experiences into account and has been shaped by her own - not something conservatives want to bother with when interpreting the law. But, as one National Public Radio analysis has suggested, the GOP is going to look awfully churlish going after a Latina appointee to the Supreme Court when they are trying to woo enough Hispanics to the party to remain competitive. And the Republican Senate caucus is so overwhelmingly white and male that they'll look even more narrow-minded trying to nail her on key issues.

In any case, this story is yet to be played out. Meanwhile, Hispanics are very proud of Sotomayor's nomination, and they should be. She seems like a fair person. Not so Samuel Alito, the most recent addition to the Supreme Court and who has sided almost consistently with the Court's rabidly conservative, anti-progressive bloc. Even though Alito is an Italian-American, I, as someone who's half-Italian, can't speak well of him. Nor can I speak well of him despite the fact that he's from my hometown.

I probably won't be welcome at a local Columbus Day picnic sponsored by Unico for having said that, but they wouldn't invite me anyway if they knew what I thought of Columbus.