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Sotomayor Hearings start today...

Started by PIE-GUY, July 13, 2009, 09:16:45 AM

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rowjimmy

Love how Sen Sessions gives her shit and declares her unqualified because she's biased.

Epic irony.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sessions#Federal_judgeship

PIE-GUY

Quote from: rowjimmy on July 14, 2009, 11:03:07 AM
Love how Sen Sessions gives her shit and declares her unqualified because she's biased.

Epic irony.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sessions#Federal_judgeship

Wow!   "the Ku Klux Klan was not so bad until he found out that some of them smoked marijuana.[2][4]"
I've been coming to where I am from the get go
Find that I can groove with the beat when I let go
So put your worries on hold
Get up and groove with the rhythm in your soul

guyforget

hey now, we dont want to be shoving civil rights down anyone's throat
-AD_

sls.stormyrider

I guess keeping families intact isn't desirable either
"toss away stuff you don't need in the end
but keep what's important, and know who's your friend"
"It's a 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses."

fauxpaxfauxreal

Quote from: goodabouthood on July 14, 2009, 10:00:50 AM
Nice retort superfreakie.  :clap:

Not really.  He has shown no conception of my point, and why I think she's a poor choice.  His argument is tangental and has nothing to actually do with my point.

He is displaying that he thinks she's a qualified candidate, and I'm not disputing that at all.  I too think she is qualified.

However, there are many other more appropriate choices who are qualified.
She is not, in my eyes, an appropriate choice.

The politics involved in choosing her as the nominee are definitely nauseating to me, and exemplify why Obama is clearly not as awesome of a president as I thought he would be in Springfield, Ill. when he announced his candidacy.

Hicks

Perhaps you'd like to name some of the more APPROPRIATE choices.

Quote from: Trey Anastasio
But, I don't think our fans do happily lap it up, I think they go online and talk about how it was a bad show.

gah

Weah, wait, are you asking me to defend my comment that I believe Superfreakie made a nice retort? Being that he cited examples, and even gave a reference for further reading, I stand by my statement. Now, if you have something against his actual response, that's between you two.
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own.

fauxpaxfauxreal

Quote from: Hicks on July 14, 2009, 02:42:29 PM
Perhaps you'd like to name some of the more APPROPRIATE choices.



I'll find some, if and when I get the time. 

To me, an appropriate choice would be someone who officiates judiciously while staying out of outspoken controversy.

The fact that she has found herself saying things that some would say make her seem less impartial and judicious suggests to me that she is not really appropriate for the Supreme Court.

The fact that she additionally is a woman of Latin American decent, suggests to me that the Obama administration is railroading her in with a combination of a pandering to a specific subset of his supporters and by creating a political situation where criticizing her too harshly could be a political liability to Senators and Representitives.

....if she was a white male who has said exactly the same things she has said publically, and who has ruled exactly the same way she has ruled...she (and he) would have been laughed out of the House Judiciary Sub-Commitee room and subject to a nasty fillibuster.

I'm watching the All Star game right now, but I'll do some research on Circuit Court judges momentarily who would do very well filling the vacant Supreme Court seat.

Superfreakie

#23
Quote from: fauxpaxfauxreal on July 14, 2009, 01:55:11 PM
Quote from: goodabouthood on July 14, 2009, 10:00:50 AM
Nice retort superfreakie.  :clap:

Not really.  He has shown no conception of my point, and why I think she's a poor choice.  His argument is tangental and has nothing to actually do with my point.

He is displaying that he thinks she's a qualified candidate, and I'm not disputing that at all.  I too think she is qualified.

However, there are many other more appropriate choices who are qualified.
She is not, in my eyes, an appropriate choice.

The politics involved in choosing her as the nominee are definitely nauseating to me, and exemplify why Obama is clearly not as awesome of a president as I thought he would be in Springfield, Ill. when he announced his candidacy.


This is extremely long for a post, but before refuting, please read it in its entirety. Sorry in advance for typos or confusing grammar but I have a real job that requires me to write accurately and editing drives me nuts, so please bear with it.

Fauxpax, you are mislead in asserting that my response to your post had "nothing" to do with your "point", that I lack "conception". You have strayed for two obvious reasons. First, it is in my opinion, that "qualified" is intricately linked with the all encompassing nature of the word "appropriate". Without hesitation, when nominating a justice of the Supreme Court, one may conclude that the more one is qualified, reciprocally the more appropriate one's candidacy becomes. Second, my failure to appropriately address your argument in the manner you might have wished does not reside in a lack of my scholarship but more so due to the unsubstantiated argument you have poorly presented. You have declared her a leftist and yet have provided no examples concerning her body of work. You have stated that "there are many other more appropriate choices", yet when asked to name them you said you had to do research. Therefore you made a statement with the assumption that it was accurate yet had no basis to back it. That being said, I will attempt to reconstruct your argument for refutation's sake. Let us see where we come out.      

Quote from: fauxpaxfauxreal on July 13, 2009, 09:50:16 PM
She's a leftist
Quote from: fauxpaxfauxreal on July 13, 2009, 02:39:54 PM
It's almost like the Administration has basically said "we want to make a hardcore leftist pick for all the wrong reasons but she'll get in because no one can afford to block a Latina..."

In the second quote, you have implicitly stated that you believe this woman holds extreme liberal ideas. I have extrapolated this with a certain measure of confidence seeing as no one in the present administration has come forth to declare that she is a "hardcore" leftist, and, as such, this must stem from your own personal interpretation of the facts that surround this nomination. But this begs the question, from what and where do you draw this conclusion and just what do you mean by "hardcore"? For, as I have aforementioned, it would be a stretch to issue such a declaration if based solely on her judicial decisions, which I might add should be the principal determining factor in her admission to the bench.  

I think, for this arguments sake, it is best we elucidate what is entailed by the far pole of the ideological left. For the general purpose of most political discussion concerning the subject, extreme left wing views most often manifest themselves as communist models of governance and industry and at worst complete anarchy. But this is the extreme, or what you might term as "hardcore" left. Now, admittedly, it is entirely possible that you have confused left of center as being "hardcore" leftist and as such I will grant you this slip. That in mind, onwards through the fog.

Concerning her position along the ideological spectrum of left and right, let us first examine her views on capitalism. While she has not explicitly declared where she stands, following her stint as a New York assistant district attorney she struck out a path as corporate litigator representing large international firms, specifically in the area of copyright infringement and intellectual property rights. So, concerning her potential for leftist ideas towards industry or capitalism, as a whole I think it is safe to say a leftist she is not.

In regards to her own personal convictions and where they may lie along the ideological spectrum, admittedly she is left of center, depending on interpretation, but hardly "hardcore". For example, while one may reference her stated beliefs that "lower-level crimes are largely products of the socioeconomic environment" as being a liberal construct, her position is deeply entrenched with experiential evidence. Anyone who works in justice, whether a judge, lawyer, police or social counselor, quickly realizes that the poor and uneducated commit an overwhelming majority of crimes. Seeing as socioeconomic disparity runs along racial lines which are rooted in complicated generations of oppression, her stated position regarding crime has led to accusations of sympathizing, or at worst excusing, non-white crime. But again, most of these cries are heard from those over zealous Republicans and conservative  pundits stretching reality, for her legal decisions as an assistant district attorney as well as judge are incredibly fair minded and balanced. And should you doubt the veracity of my claims, both Republicans and Democrats have junior investigative teams who have created a wealth of statistical information concerning her decisions. This can all be found by perusing their respective web sites. Do it and then come back to me with stats concerning this supposed left leaning bias.

Let us now tackle that bastion of right wing ignorance and stupidity, 2nd amendment rights. It goes without saying that most people who come from inner cities support restrictions on 2nd amendment rights, while rural communities are replete with shameless gun advocacy. I say shameless, for do you really need concealed weapons in your state parks, or to be able to hunt rabbits with automatic assault rifles. Now, while the aforementioned is unquestionably and unabashedly facetious on my part, unfortunately the assault rifles that our friendly farmer assures us he has a right to are also the same weapons that are smuggled across the Mexican border to not only fuel a deadly drug war, but as well to destabilize a civil government perched on the U.S. border. And while this war is waged, its ripple conflicts are being fought throughout U.S. inner cities armed by the same arms dealers who will, much like Mexico, soon leave the local police outmatched and outgunned. So, as a Latina who grew up in the Bronx to then spend five years as an assistant D.A., do you not think her perspective on gun control will be somewhat skewered along liberal or, what I prefer to term in this case, progressive lines. Now Fauxpax, I understand you have not brought up gun rights but seeing as you have decried her as a "hardcore" leftist, gun rights obviously had to be covered. I will refrain from touching on abortion rights for obvious reasons.    

{On a side note, and please permit this digression; why is it so hard for Americans to understand that the more guns you have in circulation, the more gun deaths you will reap. Every nation in western society has figured this out but you. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot, its not guns that kill people, its people that kill people. And yes, I also liberally omitted that you just might have to depose a future dictator, although a little Michigan militia is hardly enough when running up against the U.S. military.}                

After having served as an assistant D.A. and corporate litigator, her legal career shifted to what I shall term as "community" law, practicing for a time period out of her apartment. This phase is often highlighted by conservatives as being the epicenter of her social agenda and thus the birth place of her leftist moniker. {As an aside, I always find it funny how conservatives rail against social projects yet uphold the family and community as being the foundation of their ideology.} While practicing this "community" law, Sotomayor fought cases involving police brutality, hiring practices, campaign finance etc...., all centered in the New York area. Now although I understand these avenues of litigation might be considered leftist by some, there are few on the right who would be willing to grant these issues as the exclusive property of the liberal establishment. Significant in this shift however, is that Sotomayor was purposely gravitating from one legal arena to the next and in the process developing an incredibly broad understanding of what law, specifically American law, truly is, its incredible beauty.

Which such a broad command of the law it is no surprise that she was soon nominated to the bench. Concerning her judgeship and whether she is leftist, I will borrow the following from wiki but it is sourced and verified, although I have removed the footnotes to facilitate reading:

"Sotomayor generally kept a low public profile as a district court judge. She showed a willingness to take anti-government positions in a number of cases, and during her first year in the seat, she received high ratings from liberal public-interest groups. Other sources and organizations regarded her as a centrist during this period. In criminal cases, she gained a reputation as for tough sentencing and was not viewed as a pro-defense judge. A Syracuse University study found that in such cases, Sotomayor generally handed out longer sentences than her colleagues, especially when white-collar crime was involved. Fellow district judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum was an influence upon Sotomayor in adopting a narrow, "just the facts" approach to judicial decision-making.

As a trial judge, she garnered a reputation for being well-prepared in advance of a case and moving cases along a tight schedule.[17] Lawyers before her court viewed her as plain-spoken, intelligent, demanding, and sometimes somewhat unforgiving; one said, "She does not have much patience for people trying to snow her. You can't do it".  (WIKI)  

As is obvious sometimes she was left, sometimes center and sometimes right depending on the nature of the case but more importantly she is not a "hardcore" leftist, let alone leftist.      

Fauxpax, while I would like to spend more time proving to you that she is a centrist, I just don't have the time and I wish to continue refuting other parts of your argument. However, that being said, I think I have provided you with many avenues of information that you may follow up on your own time should you wish to try to refute the above, for I am sure I have left some gaping omissions. I would recommend you start at the statistics that both parties have gathered concerning her rulings and decisions. Now, let us continue onwards through the fog, for the following argument you present requires less, shall we say, assumption.  

Quote from: fauxpaxfauxreal on July 13, 2009, 09:50:16 PM
She may be qualified, but I can't think of a less desirable choice that would be acceptable to the general public.

I am struggling to understand this above statement. First, a large segment of your population is Hispanic, with California soon to be majority Hispanic, with Texas to follow. Second, many women would love to see another woman on the bench and this fact should not be underestimated. Third, many democrats/liberals understand that diversity on the bench is a good thing (this I will defend a little later on, so hang tight). So which segment of the general public are you talking about. Here are the most recent polls by Gallup and CBS

Here's a Gallup Poll taken  July 10-12:   Would you like to see the Senate vote in favor of Sotomayor serving on the Supreme Court, or not?
Vote In Favor -- 53%
Not Vote In Favor -- 33%
Unsure   --13%  
       
And a CBS News Poll. July 9-12, 2009.  Should the Senate vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, or vote against Sotomayor, or can't you say?
Vote to Confirm-- 30%
Vote Against --  14%
Can't Say -- 52%
 Unsure  --   4%

Seems to me that the general public disagree with you or, sadly, are not educated enough about the subject to make a decision.    


Quote from: fauxpaxfauxreal on July 14, 2009, 01:55:11 PM
I too think she is qualified.

Okay, glad we agree here. But..............

Quote from: fauxpaxfauxreal on July 14, 2009, 01:55:11 PM
However, there are many other more appropriate choices who are qualified.

As I said previously, you threw this out there to support your argument and yet when Hicks asked who, you replied you will need to research circuit judges. Good thing we are not in a court of law, cause you would be a laughing stock right about now. P.S. Don't try to defend a doctorate or masters with your philosophy of randomly drawing conclusions without support, the outcome will not be kind. Now, this is not to say that there are not better choices, but simply that you cannot make that assertion without something to back your ass up.

Even worse in this argument is that you have stated that "there are MANY MORE". "Many", really, "many". I don't think so. This woman has successfully practiced multiple types of law, fought her way up through a white, male dominated system by winning scholarships the entire way because her single mother could not afford her Ivy league education. "Sotomayor graduated with an A.B., summa cum laude, from Princeton University in 1976, and received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal". Then practices in nearly every type of significant law, big firms all the way to her single private business and then adjudicates for fifteen years. Right, I forgot, people like this are a dime a dozen, just waiting in the wings. "Many" you say, really, there are "many", really......un-fucking-believable.
   
Quote from: fauxpaxfauxreal on July 14, 2009, 01:55:11 PM
She is not, in my eyes, an appropriate choice.

However, had you done some research and composed your argument with your mind, which by the way is color blind and does not see sex, you might have understood just how awesome, in all senses of the word, this woman truly is. But there is confusion in this above statement because it is possible to conjoin it with your following statement, although both were detached by a paragraph and therefore I am not sure if the above quote was to be interpreted in a vacuum or not. If it were though, it is impossible to refute because "in my eyes" is a subjective opinion that you have not supported with information. But if it is tied to the statement below, and thus supported, at least it gives you a leg to stand your ignorance on. I will assume it is the latter, not only to prop you up but also to allow me to defend the "awesomeness" of your president.  

Quote from: fauxpaxfauxreal on July 14, 2009, 01:55:11 PM
The politics involved in choosing her as the nominee are definitely nauseating to me, and exemplify why Obama is clearly not as awesome of a president as I thought he would be in Springfield, Ill. when he announced his candidacy.

Here is the conundrum behind picking a justice. It will always be steeped in political posturing but it works itself out because your forefathers incorporated this understanding in its design; an understanding couched in the knowledge that the institution would serve as the guardian of one of the most beautifully written "living" documents known to man, the American Constitution. The knowledge that this document would be tugged and pulled by two poles who would each have their turn at controlling its direction, yet forever patiently prodding its progression with checks and balances. I get goosebumps just thinking about the constitutions power (however, it does lose its luster when you piss all over it, not that I am mentioning any names).    

To return to your statement, you obviously believe that this position should have gone to the best person, and not the best woman or more specifically the best Latina woman. You are wrong because you have missed the importance of a subtle yet very powerful word, "diversity". Let us assume that we can gather the best legal minds in the United States, those who would be the optimum candidates to fill the nine seats on the bench and we administer a test to see who is the best. And, low and behold, the top nine scores are all white men. Is this the best bench? Well it might be if we could truly do away with human bias; that we could judge without reference to our life experience. But we cannot. And yet, at every nomination for the Supreme Court this is what is asked of the candidates with the knowledge that it is a bullshit question, and everyone fucking knows it. It is as ridiculous as the statement that judges do not make law, they interpret it. Everyone knows that in interpreting American law, precedent is set and thus law is created. So while your executive and both houses produce law exclusively, the judiciary can strike it or move it in a certain direction. So while they do not write it, they definitely shape it, which is you allow, is a step in creating.    

We are not the same.

Consider this. Who starts wars? Men. Who commits the majority of violent acts in our society? Men. Who makes up the majority of the prison population? Men.

Men and women have different genetic code. This cannot be disputed.

Men and women think and behave differently. This cannot be disputed.

But the bench doesn't just interpret law for men, does it? No, it does for women as well. And yet while your population is divided 50/50 THERE IS ONLY ONE WOMAN ON THE BENCH. This is a farce.      

So, Obama had to nominate a woman. And not just to satisfy his electorate, but also because he is a constitutional scholar more than aware that the constitution is a living document whose interpretation is rooted not only in legal understanding but experience as well. Consider that all the rights that protect you today were laid out hundreds of years ago. Women' rights, gay rights, color rights, all staring you in the face but awaiting personal experience to draw them out. And slowly, over time, it has. Do you understand how incredible that is? Blows my mind.

So you need a woman. In fact, you need another two more women. But that is coming, as there are presently more women graduating from law school then men.      

So if you needed a woman, and I researched a lot of the potential female candidates, Sotomayor was by far one of, if not the most qualified and experienced candidate out there.

Now, as for being Hispanic. Because I spend a lot of time traveling and working in international forums, I have come to grasp that while we are all the same, needing shelter, food etc... our underlying idiosyncratic sympathies cannot be suppressed, no matter how hard we might try. Alito, Roberts and Thomas, all conservatives, have stated this empathy is important in their decision making, although they have been quick to add that it is a blanket effect that is not partial but instead applies to all that come before it. But look yourself in the mirror, do you truly see everyone as equal? No you don't, we are not God, whomever or however you interpret that concept (or not at all). And so, in acknowledgment of these failings, the bench must not only be equal in sex but must also be colored by those over whom it protects. This is the only way it can truly be fair and guide you. Sotomayor knew this, it is why she made that comment about a Latina woman, although taken radically out of context and yes, as she admitted today, poorly phrased. But, as I have just shown, the argument behind it is indisputable.

AND OBAMA FUCKING KNEW THIS, TOO BAD YOU DIDN'T. WELL, SO YOU'VE JUMPED HIS SHIP. NO LOSS, A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE JUMPED ON.

AND WAS THE DECISION POLITICAL, YES, BUT GUESS WHAT, HE'S A POLITICIAN.

The justice who follows Sotomayor should then be an Asian woman.  

One final note. Republican Lindsey Graham's cross was pretty sweet today. Especially when compared to his pathetic brethren who spouted the Republican script like robots.    

   
Que te vaya bien, que te vaya bien, Te quiero más que las palabras pueden decir.

fauxpaxfauxreal

I'll read your lengthy response later....but I wanted to comment on your first few sentances.

I wasn't saying that my post was what you didn't have a conception of...it was my point, which was obviously obscured by the fact that writing about, critically thinking about, and verbalising my opinions of personel and policies involved in the creation, interpretation of and enforcement of the law is not something with which I am accustomed to or have much practice with.  I wasn't saying that you couldn't understand what I was saying, but rather that I could not properly say what I thought in a way that I knew you would easily understand.  I was not saying that you were a bad reader or listener, but rather, that I was a poor writer and/or speaker and therefore what I said was not the best representation of my thought process.

I'm at work, but I'll read the bulk of your response at my leisure.

I hope I didn't offend.

rowjimmy

Quote from: Superfreakie on July 15, 2009, 01:52:27 AM

Fauxpax, you are mislead in asserting that my response to your post had "nothing" to do with your "point", that I lack "conception". You have strayed for two obvious reasons. First, it is in my opinion, that "qualified" is intricately linked with the all encompassing nature of the word "appropriate". Without hesitation, when nominating a justice of the Supreme Court, one may conclude that the more one is qualified, reciprocally the more appropriate one's candidacy becomes. Second, my failure to appropriately address your argument in the manner you might have wished does not reside in a lack of my scholarship but more so due to the unsubstantiated argument you have poorly presented. You have declared her a leftist and yet have provided no examples concerning her body of work. You have stated that "there are many other more appropriate choices", yet when asked to name them you said you had to do research. Therefore you made a statement with the assumption that it was accurate yet had no basis to back it.    


Faux, you just got superfreak'd.

The rest of the post is just gravy. (A whole truckload of gravy (maybe two.))

sophist

God Damn.  Pwning of the year nomination right there. 

Well played Superfreakie. 
Can we talk about the Dead?  I'd love to talk about the fucking Grateful Dead, for once, can we please discuss the Grateful FUCKING Dead!?!?!?!

PIE-GUY

All I said was:

Quote from: PIE-GUY on July 13, 2009, 09:16:45 AM

Thoughts?


I had little expectation of multiple pages of thoughts from any one person!
I've been coming to where I am from the get go
Find that I can groove with the beat when I let go
So put your worries on hold
Get up and groove with the rhythm in your soul

Hicks

whoa.  Time to pack it in fauxpaux, you're clearly out-gunned here.
Quote from: Trey Anastasio
But, I don't think our fans do happily lap it up, I think they go online and talk about how it was a bad show.

gah

Ok, maybe I jumped the gun earlier, but I know feel it is appropriate to say:

Quote from: goodabouthood on July 14, 2009, 10:00:50 AM
Nice retort superfreakie.  :clap:

Thanks for the edgumacation! I really enjoyed the last few points concerning the need for diversified representation on the bench.

:clap:
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own.