Big surprise, huh?

McCain will vote against Sotomayor. Repeats the fallacy that Ricci was reversed unanimously.

I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up

Berlusconi’s prostitute is suing the foreign minister for impugning her reputation. Let me just repeat that: Berlusconi’s prostitute is suing the foreign minister for impugning her reputation.

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There are now a record number of inmates serving life sentences, 10% of all prisoners, twice that in three-strikes California. 2/3 of the lifers are black or Latino.

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Orrin Hatch, who says he will vote against Sotomayor: “In truth, I wish President Obama had chosen a Hispanic nominee that all Senators could support.” Edward James Olmos? Ugly Betty? Eric Estrada? Freddie Prinze Jr? It’s Eric Estrada, isn’t it?

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Obama invites Henry Louis Gates and the cop who arrested him to the White House for a beer. I’m now officially embarrassed by my president. If Gates doesn’t go have a beer with his persecutor, he looks like a jerk. Obama says that the arrest was an overreaction but “Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.” Who did Gates put in handcuffs and put in a cell for 4 hours? Let’s not try to create equivalences here. Only one of the two had authority granted to him by the state over the other.

Another reason not to create equivalence: Gates probably doesn’t deal with cops every day, but it’s Sgt. Crowley’s job to deal with members of the public in stressful circumstances. If he’s doing his job properly, he will get cursed at or shouted at several times a week. He should be able to handle it without taking it personally.

In their conversation, Sgt. Crowley complained to Obama that the press have been coming onto his lawn. Yes, isn’t it annoying when people come uninvited onto your property?

The Un-Sotomayor

Linda Chavez began her testimony at the Sotomayor hearings today with the only honest words of her career: “I testify today not as a wise Latina woman”.

Sotomayor hearings: Lots of ‘splainin’ to do

In this morning’s questioning, Cornyn continued to be befuddled by the whole concept of a “wise Latina woman.” “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms,” he asked?

Cornyn was also befuddled by the notion that there is some “indefiniteness” in the law, which is kind of the reason we have a Supreme Court in the first place.

Cornyn was still further befuddled by the notion that judges bring “life experiences” to the bench, which is why we don’t pick the Supreme Court by putting the names of every American into a giant hat.

Tom “OMG, Lesbians in the Bathrooms!” Coburn posed a hypothetical case about abortion: “Let’s say I’m 38 weeks pregnant and we discover a small spina bifida sack on the lower sacrum... Would it be legal in this country to terminate that child’s life?” Sotomayor explains to him very gently (because you know what pregnant men are like) that abortion is actually regulated at the state rather than the federal level.


Coburn asked over and over whether there is a “right to personal self-defense.” Finally, she set up a scenario:

But, under New York law, if you’re being threatened with eminent death or very serious injury, you can use force to repel that, and that would be legal. The question that would come up, and does come up before juries and judges, is how eminent is the threat. If the threat was in this room, “I’m going to come get you,” and you go home and get -- or I go home. I don’t want to suggest I am, by the way. Please, I’m not -- I don’t want anybody to misunderstand what I’m trying to say. If I go home, get a gun, come back and shoot you, that may not be legal under New York law because you would have alternative ways to defend...

COBURN: You’ll have lots of ‘splainin’ to do.

SOTOMAYOR: Waaaa, Ricky!

I may have added that last bit.

Lindsey, do you have a douchbaggery problem?

CONTEST: Provide a better answer than whatever Sotomayor said, which I can’t even remember, in response to Lindsey Graham’s question, “Do you think you have a temperament problem?”

ALTERNATE CONTEST: Provide a caption for this photo:

Sotomayor hearings: we’re not robots

Sotomayor: “we’re not robots who listen to evidence and don’t have feelings”. That’s just a dreadful calumny against Robot-Americans.

The corollary of the Republican complaints against the idea that a “wise Latina woman” might bring something to the bench, is that a judiciary composed entirely of dumb white men and/or robots would not be lacking in any way. Would they care to argue this case?

Speaking of robots who don’t have feelings, here is a super-awesome ad just released by California’s robot overlord. The music, the Teutonic enunciation, the way he sits at an angle to the camera, the way he stands up as he intones, “I am standing firm for a balanced budget that does not raise your taxes,” the way the color of every part of his head comes from a bottle, the way he calls for us to stand (firm) with him but sounds like he plans to kill us all...



SIZE MATTERS: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-Way Down South in the Land of Cotton) asked Sotomayor: “do you think that Frank Ricci and the other firefighters whose claims you dismissed felt that their arguments and concerns were appropriately understood and acknowledged by such a short opinion from the court?” What, Jeffy, “Go eat a bag of dicks” too pithy for you? Of course we all remember Scalia’s famous opinion in Bush v. Gore:

Sotomayor hearings: Most of our judges understand what it’s like to be old

More opening statements (Sessions’ in previous post).

Chuck Grassley: “Judge Sotomayor, I’ll be asking you about your ability to wear that judicial blindfold.” Kinky.

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Lindsey Graham attempted to out-brown her: “No Republican would have chosen you, Judge; that’s just the way it is. We would have picked Miguel Estrada. We would all have voted for him. And I don’t think anybody on that side would have voted for Judge Estrada, who is a Honduran immigrant... So the Hispanic element of this hearing’s important... my Republican colleagues who vote against you I assure you could vote for a Hispanic nominee.” So that’s okay, then.

(Update: By the time I got around to writing the post, I’d forgotten why I selected the quote: No Republican would have chosen Sotomayor? Hey Lindsey, who appointed her to a judgeship the first time?)

A WARNING TO KEEP HER HOT LATIN BLOOD IN CHECK: “Now, unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed.”

WHAT BOTHERS LINDSEY: “It just bothers me when somebody wearing a robe takes the robe off and says that their experience makes them better than someone else.” Especially if they’re wearing women’s underwear but they’re not a woman – I’m looking at you, Scalia.

SO THERE: “I think your experience can add a lot to the court, but I don’t think it makes you better than anyone else.”

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Tom Coburn, who brings to the Judiciary Committee, as he told John Roberts, his “medical skills of observation of body language”:

SOMETHING REMARKABLE: “It is truly an honor to have you before us. It is -- says something remarkable about our country that you’re here.” And something remarkable about you that you’re still awake... Ms. Sotomayor?... hello?

“And I assure you, during your time before this committee, you will be treated with the utmost respect and kindness.” ACCUSATION OF RACISM IN 5,4,3...

EVIDENTLY SOMEONE WHO COMES FROM THE HEARTLAND GRASPS AND HOLDS MORE THAN A WISE LATINA DOES: “And I’m worried that our Constitution may be seen to be malleable and evolving when I, as someone who comes from the heartland, seems to grasp and hold and the people that I represent from the state of Oklahoma seem to grasp and hold that there is a foundational document and there are statutes and occasionally treaties that should be the rule, rather than our opinions.” Can we just agree that anyone who’s ever argued that there is more wisdom in one part of the country than another or used the phrase “San Francisco liberal” or “un-American parts of our nation,” can just shut up about the “wise Latina” thing?

“During the campaign, he promised to nominate someone who’s got the heart and the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young, teenaged mom. The implication is that our judges today don’t have that. Do you realize how astounding that is? The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, to be African-American or gay or disabled or old. Most of our judges understand what it’s like to be old.”

WHERE EMPATHY COMES FROM (THE STORK?): “We expect a judge to merely call balls and strikes? Maybe so, maybe not. But we certainly don’t expect them to sympathize with one party over the other, and that’s where empathy comes from.”

Sotomayor hearings: Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another

Just as I turned on the Sotomayor hearing, heard Lindsey Graham say “wise Latina woman”; turned off Sotomayor hearing.

But Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (by the way, that is the way he referred to himself before he became “Jeff” to run for the Senate) has helpfully posted his opening remarks online.

LEAHY BROUGHT BROWNIES! “I hope it will be viewed as the best hearing this Committee has ever held.”

SO THEY CAN HEAR YOU CALLED A RACIST OVER AND OVER: “I know your family is proud, and rightfully so. It is a pleasure to have them with us today.”

“I expect this hearing and resulting debate to be characterized by a respectful tone, a discussion of serious issues, and a thoughtful dialogue”. FIRST ACCUSATION OF RACISM IN 5,4,3...


DUDE, YOU JUST BLEW MY MIND: “our legal system is based on a firm belief in an ordered universe and objective truth.”

He warned of “a Brave New World where words have no true meaning...” I mean, “rhubarb” could mean “rutabaga”! It’s a madhouse I tell you, a madhouse!!! “...and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see.” I was going to make a Fox News joke or something, but in a court, isn’t “deciding what facts they choose to see” actually called “applying the rules of evidence”?

“We have seen federal judges force their own political and social agenda on the nation, dictating that the words ‘under God’ be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and barring students from even silent prayer in schools.” Putting aside that “under God” was a late addition to the pledge, any court ruling wouldn’t actually govern the content of the pledge, just what can be said in a secular public school. Also, in addition to the metal detectors that schools now have, which they didn’t have in my day, are there also telepaths to ensure that students don’t engage in “even silent prayer”?

“Judges have – contrary to the longstanding rules of war – created a right for terrorists, captured on a foreign battlefield, to sue the United States government in our own courts. Judges have cited foreign laws, world opinion, and a United Nations resolution to determine that a state death penalty law was unconstitutional.” Note that Sessions, in the sentence immediately preceding the one expressing his disgust with foreign laws, world opinion etc being mentioned in an American court of law, suggested that “longstanding rules of war” should have precedence over the United States Constitution.

CALL IT RHUBARB: “Call it empathy, call it prejudice, or call it sympathy, but whatever it is, it is not law.”

CLUELESS: “Could it be that her time as a leader of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund provides a clue as to her decision against the firefighters?”

EMPATHY IS ALWAYS PREJUDICE: “It seems to me that in Ricci, Judge Sotomayor’s empathy for one group of firefighters turned out to be prejudice against the others. That is, of course, the logical flaw in the ‘empathy standard.’ Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.” And there’s the Republican party’s philosophy encapsulated for you.

BECAUSE HE HATES US, AND WANTS US TO SUFFER: “I hope the American people will follow these hearings closely.”

A SLIGHTLY STONED, MELLOW JUDGE? “And, at the end of the hearing, ask, If I must one day go to court, what kind of judge do I want to hear my case?”

The Sotomayor hearings

I don’t think I’ll be C-SPANning them, because watching them will lack one oddly perverse pleasure of past Judiciary Committee hearings: yelling at Joe Biden to shut up already.

Ricci Rich

Evidently the right will be attacking Sotomayor on the Ricci case, in which the Second Circuit ruled that Christina Ricci should really be more selective in her choice of roles.

Though oddly, they can grow up to be the Hardy Boys

Sonia Sotomayor on why she became a lawyer: “I chose to be a lawyer, and ultimately a judge, because I find endless challenge in the complexities of the law.”

Barack Obama on why Sotomayor became a lawyer: “when she was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of eight, she was informed that people with diabetes can’t grow up to be police officers or private investigators like Nancy Drew.”

Get your stories straight, people.

Some British teenage hackers got into the Indian nuclear computers and erased a bunch of files and told them exactly what they thought of nuclear weapons.

Kenneth Starr finally admits that he regularly leaks to the press, but says it is necessary "to engender confidence in the work of this office." The interviews are of course on a not-for-attribution basis. I feel more confident already.

A racist party does very well indeed in the Queensland elections, as I'm sure you've all been following.

The US government finally apologizes and pays off those Japanese we kidnapped out of Latin American countries during World War II. Of course they only get one-fourth what Japanese-Americans got, and only when the latter are paid off, if there's any money left. But, hell, they were illegal aliens.

Jewish settlers on the West Bank are now to be allowed to form their own armed civil guard units.

Creepy medical procedure of the week: babies with two mommies for real. You take nutrient from the egg of a young woman and mix it in with the egg of an older woman, ensuring that 50-year olds can give birth, like that's a good idea. No one's quite sure how much of the DNA from the donor gets mixed in, but some of it definitely does. 2 women are pregnant by this technique now.

Republicans in the Senate are blocking a judge (big news there, huh?), one Sonia Sotomayor, a hispanic woman, for the 2nd Circuit. They can't find anything in her record to object to, but they're afraid that if she gets this slot, she'll be appointed to the Supreme Court by Clinton or Gore, and they don't want Dems to have any viable options for the Stevens seat (or whomever), especially a hispanic woman.

The Flemish regional government has voted to give state aid to Nazi collaborators on the same basis as war victims.

Ireland still has a list of banned books: H.G. Wells, Upton Sinclair, The Second Sex, Marie Stopes, etc etc. That may change this week.

Is everybody ready for another Balkans war? I thought not.

There are so many brushfire wars these days, I can't keep track of them all. Whatever happened to the Namibia-Botswana border dispute? What's going on in Kashmir? Start looking out now for the next one, Cyprus, due to commence sometime in July.
That offer everyone reported from that nice Mr. Habibie to give autonomy to East Timor? The price tag was that the UN, Portugal and everyone have to recognize that Indonesia owns it. No thanks.