If only kids had some place to freely pray as they wish in this country. A place that they could go to every Sunday morning. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Thought you might enjoy this article from democracynow.org about the irony of Jeff Sessions questioning anyone else’s ability to be objective on the subject of race. The Senate rejected his nomination to the federal bench 23 years ago because of numerous “racially insensitive” remarks. Yet here he is, leading the charge against Sotomayor. An interesting read, I have to say.
Somehow, he escaped my notice, and I don’t think I realized until today what a Dickasaurus Rex he really is.
Sen. Sessions has waited for exactly this moment. He was denied a spot on the federal bench because of what were perceived to be his insensitive views on race. He was lauded in Alabama for the fact he was denied the judgeship; he was seen as having been railroaded by NorthEast libruls. He subsequently ran for the Senate in large part to try and have a say in who got confirmed for the federal bench, so that he can take out his pique at having been turned down.
This nomination offers him the dream situation. Too bad his little foot-stomping act of retribution will get him nothing but a few days of notoriety on Fox News, followed by a lifetime of reading SCotUS opinions written by Sotomayor, J. 
I’ve already corrected this quote once, but maybe you missed it. His full quote was ‘even silent, even private prayer’. Written out, it’s rather vague. But vague doesn’t mean it’s misleading. I’m not sure he meant ‘silent and private’. A lot would depend on his inflection. He might have been correcting himself or talking about 2 separate things.
We’ll probably find for sure later, since I have the feeling these were just opening salvos that they’ll revisit in detail later in their questioning.
In any case, it seems to me that if you isolate a comment, change the context and then misquote it, you are going out of your way to interpret it in the least charitable way.
I’ve done none of those things. You claim “even silent, even private” means just “private.” Fine. Even if we accept your interpretation (and different interpretations are different from misquoting, thanks), it still doesn’t apply to a school-sponsored prayer in front of hundreds of students.
Nor have I isolated or changed the context. There was no context to either comment beyond that which I provided (e.g. a litany of complaints about activist judges).
I’ll readily concede that you’re being more charitable to Sessions than I am. But as I demonstrated, even your more charitable reading is also misleading and false.
I’ve got a question about one of the witnesses to be called - John Ricci. Do we know if he was ever even in a courtroom at the same time as Judge Sotomayor? Is there anything substantive he can possibly add other than, “she ruled against me?”
I’d love to hear someone ask him if he would be against her nomination if she had ruled in his favor.
A review of 1994 constitutional cases during her tenure on the 2nd circuit shows she voted with the majority 98.2 % of the time. Sotamayor is a mainstream judge. Her dissents were very rare.
Ricci’s there to be asked sensitively sympathetic questions by Republican senators about how hard he worked for that promotional exam, how bitterly disappointed he was to have his justly earned promotion snatched away from him by an activist (liberal racist minority) judge, and how dreadfully it would imperil the rights and trample underfoot the humble aspirations of (white) Americans to have that A(LRM) judge elevated to the Supreme Court where she can wreak racist liberal havoc on the sacred Constitution.
More or less. I especially enjoy how he’s a serial litigant who’d already sued fire departments twice before the now infamous Supreme Court case. Not the usual right-wing champion, but please, move along. Nothing to see here.
He will add nothing to these proceedings other than bluster and another platform for Sessions et al to grandstand on.
I have to say: Sotomayor seems more relaxed and forthcoming today. It might be because all I’ve seen is big, fat softballs so far, but even yesterday I thought she kind of bumbled through some of those too.
Senators yuk-yuk-yukking about the All Star Game is miserably unfunny.
Agreed.
I must say that listening on the radio is torturous. Sotomayor is not very appealling onthe radio (not what she is saying, mind you, but her delivery), which I think is a good thing, because it shows me that she isn’t a polished speechifier, like the Senators
In his suit he argued he was discriminated against because he was dyslexic.
Would somebody think of the dyslexics?
I’m essentially listening on the radio (CSPAN feed at work, minimized), but when I do actually watch for a moment, there’s absolutely no improvement. Unless “watching Sotomayor take notes” and “watching Senators read from their notes” constitutes an improvement. I agree though: her delivery…is…painfully slow…and…labored.
She’ basically following her instructions, which are to bore everybody to torpid stupefaction, and avoid giving Fox News any kind of dramatic soundbites. The more tortuous she makes her answers to listen to, the less anybody will want to hear them back, and the more likely they’ll be to flip around with the remote.
I think Lindsey Graham kind of nailed it when he told her she would have to melt down not to get confirmed, so the only ghost of a strategy the Republicans really have is to poke at her and bait her and try to get her blow up, or at least say or do something remotely intersting. So far she’s avoided that, and I think the Republicans are now out of Senators to question her with.
Bringing in the firefighters is a bit of tasteless grandstanding – they’re setting it up to look like victims’ statements in a sentencing hearing, but I think it has the potentential to backfire on them somewhat. They should really consider what kind of subtle implications are being evoked by bringing in a bunch of big, butch white guys to glower intimidatingly at a middle-aged little Latina woman.
I agree
DYSLEXICS OF AMERICA UNTIE
Ahh, the good old “if you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, kill them with boredom” strategy.
I don’t think they’re really giving her aany chance to dazzle them with brilliance. The last thing the Republicans want to do is engage her on substance and scholarship. Their goal is to obscure her qualifications, not explore them.
Not that the Republicans would recognize judicial brilliance if it smacked them in the behind and took them out for a steak and lobster dinner.