Michelle Malkin » SCOTUS pick: Sonia Sotomayor

SCOTUS pick: Sonia Sotomayor

By Michelle Malkin • May 26, 2009 09:55 AM

So, it’s Sonia Sotomayor. Identity politics triumphs. Here’s the bio/record info I shared at the beginning of the month:

“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:

Memorandum

TO: JCN Members and Interested Parties
FROM: Wendy Long, Counsel to JCN
DATE: May 26, 2009
RE: Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor

• President Obama has threatened to nominate liberal judicial activists who will indulge their left-wing policy preferences instead of neutrally applying the law. In selecting Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his
Supreme Court nominee, President Obama has carried out his threat.

• Judge Sotomayor will allow her feelings and personal politics to stand in the way of basic fairness. In a recent case, Ricci v. DeStefano, Sotomayor sided with a city that used racially discriminatory practices to deny promotions to firefighters. The per curiam opinion Sotomayor joined went so far out of its way to bury the firefighters’ important claims of unfair treatment that her colleague, Judge Jose Cabranes, a Clinton appointee, chastised her.

o According to Judge Cabranes, Sotomayor’s opinion “contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at he core of this case” and its “perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal.” Even the liberal Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen expressed disappointment with the case, stating, “Ricci is not just a legal case but a man who has been
deprived of the pursuit of happiness on account of race.”

o Sotomayor’s terrible decision in Ricci is under review by the Supreme Court and an opinion is expected by the end of June.

• Sotomayor readily admits that she applies her feelings and personal politics when deciding cases. In a 2002 speech at Berkeley, she stated that she believes it is appropriate for a judge to consider
their “experiences as women and people of color,” which she believes should “affect our decisions.” She went on to say in that same speech “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her
experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” She reiterated her commitment to that lawless judicial philosophy at Duke Law School in 2005 when she stated that the “Court of Appeals is where policy is made.”

• The poor quality of Sotomayor’s decisions is reflected in her terrible record of reversals by the Supreme Court.

• Sotomayor is a favorite of far left special interest groups. In addition to her record as a hard left judicial activist, Sotomayor has been recommended for the Supreme Court by Nan Aron of the very liberal Alliance for Justice, who stated in a 2004 memo to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Sotomayor had “been through an initial vetting and fit into the criteria that we believe should be the
standard for any Supreme Court justice.”

• The White House is sure to argue that Sotomayor is a “bipartisan pick” because Bush 41 appointed her to the district court: President George H.W. Bush nominated Sotomayor in 1991 only because the New York senators had forced on the White House a deal that enabled Senator Moynihan to name one of every four district court nominees in New York. In 1998, 29 Republican senators voted against President Clinton’s nomination of Sotomayor to the Second Circuit.

Legal analyst Stuart Taylor sums up this p.c. pick:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” — Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001

The above assertion and the rest of a remarkable speech to a Hispanic group by Sotomayor — widely touted as a possible Obama nominee to the Supreme Court — has drawn very little attention in the mainstream media since it was quoted deep inside The New York Times on May 15.

It deserves more scrutiny, because apart from Sotomayor’s Supreme Court prospects, her thinking is representative of the Democratic Party’s powerful identity-politics wing.

Sotomayor also referred to the cardinal duty of judges to be impartial as a mere “aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.” And she suggested that “inherent physiological or cultural differences” may help explain why “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

So accustomed have we become to identity politics that it barely causes a ripple when a highly touted Supreme Court candidate, who sits on the federal Appeals Court in New York, has seriously suggested that Latina women like her make better judges than white males.

***

Update: 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.

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#707698

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:13 pm, atheling said:

Ragspierre:

Also, they HAVE had access to the facts, through the venues I previously listed.

If they are too stupid and lazy to go outside the box they live in, that’s NO ONE’S fault but their own.

I’m becoming incredulous that you are taking this position. On the one hand, you say you agree with me that we are responsible for the leadership we vote for. But on the other, you are making lame excuses for the apathetic and ignorant American voter! Why are you taking this tack? It is so unlike you.
#707700

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:18 pm, Ragspierre said:

Economic impacts are important only because they lead to impacts on actual people.

Without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

There are other ways to impact people. Anti gay laws impact gays, for example.

And are, uniformly, unconstitutional.

Duh.

Mr. Reagan did not solicit ideas from homogenized conservatives. Because Posner was listened to by Reagan was not a stamp of Posner’s conservative credentials, just the merit of his thinking.

I doubt VERY seriously that Posner calls himself a conservative.

You can call him one, but that simply reduces your credibility.
#707701

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:19 pm, nail49 said:

And I bet that creature wasn’t even posting his own words. He goes to other sites and plagiarizes, folks here have found him out.

He can’t come up with an original thought of his own, because he has no brain.

atheling: At the risk of becoming a target of your vitriol, you are certainly projecting a great deal today…
#707702

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:20 pm, atheling said:

nail49:

Oh really? Do tell me where I’ve plagiarized comments.

Otherwise, go away, little gnat.
#707704

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:22 pm, EWTHeckman said:

Ragspierre,

I’m sympathetic to your argument. However, even though the MSM was clearly in Obama’s corner, they do not have total control over the flow of information. There were ads from all sides, talk radio, the internet, direct mailings, voter guides and even the occasional story in the MSM for “balance” which should have alerted people that—at the very least—there were direct contradictions which needed to be figured out.

There is a distinct difference between naivete and gullible. There is an even larger difference between uninformed and willfully ignorant.

Those who were willfully ignorant and willingly led astray do deserve what they get. After all, if you’re not willing to look out for your own interests, someone else will eventually use to you for their own purposes.

When it comes to voting, we all feel the results of an election, whether we vote or not. Therefore, everyone in the country has a responsibility to be at least minimally aware of the actual positions held by the candidates running for major office. After all, it’s not like such information is hard to find.
#707706

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:25 pm, nail49 said:

to assume that only “we” are smart enough to have found it and that the rest of the public is just a bunch of suckered lambs constitutes arrogance of the worst sort.

bigterpfan: The fact that so many voted based on emotions and not facts is not arrogance on my part.
#707707

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:25 pm, Ragspierre said:

But on the other, you are making lame excuses for the apathetic and ignorant American voter! Why are you taking this tack? It is so unlike you.

As put, you are correct. But you are wrong about your depiction.

I am not excusing, but recognizing a reality that has to be dealt with.

The purity of your point is a given.

My questions involve going beyond that to what we do with the information we both comprehend.

It is stupid to hole the life-boat. We agree. But we are still in the life-boat, and we have to deal with the urge to hole it. EFFECTIVELY.

I find the impulse to say, “OK, you put a hole in the boat. You deserve what you get.” unsatisfactory. I’m in the boat.
#707708

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:27 pm, nail49 said:

go away, little gnat.

atheling: Your anger is quite amusing.

Are you off your meds?
#707710

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pm, bigterpfan said:

The fact that so many voted based on emotions and not facts is not arrogance on my part.

I’d sugggest that the fact that you assume that the “other side” voted based on emotions and that those on “your side” voted based on a cool deliberative consideration of the facts is the very definition of arrogance.

There are a number of reasons why Obama won, not the least of which is the terrible campaign run by McCain and the terrible choice of candidates by Republicans. By assuming that only “we” know what is best/what is right suggests an arrogance that so often the liberals are accused of.
#707715

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:33 pm, atheling said:

Ragspierre:

What you propose then, is control! You or I cannot control what another human being will read, or watch, regarding political information. We can put it out there, and tell them our opinion, but if they refuse to listen, or even look at the alternatives, then they are to blame if they screw up. And yes, we suffer from their idiocy as well.

Why do you think I am looking at secession as the only way now? It’s beyond repair, the level of stupidity and wilfull ignorance out there – look at the moronic trolls on this thread alone! You cannot fight invincible ignorance, and I don’t think your suggestions will work. They don’t want to know, and they will never know, and no matter what you do or say, they will not accept it.

It’s futile. The only way out is to separate ourselves from them, and form our own union. Let them go down in the boat themselves. I’ve had a belly full of their stupidity, and no longer wish to “work with them”. Game’s over. It’s time to move on and leave them to their devices.
#707718

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:35 pm, bigterpfan said:

For many reasons, however, I’ll stop my agreeing with Atheling at this point. Not that I assume anybody would care.
#707721

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:37 pm, nail49 said:

cool deliberative consideration of the facts

bigtwerpfan: How many people fainted at McCain/Palin rallies and how many have swooned over Obama — to include the LameStream Media. Tell me emotions weren’t involved.
#707722

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:39 pm, nail49 said:

bigterpfan: Sorry for the fat fingers on typing your name on my last posting…
#707723

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:39 pm, bigterpfan said:

I’m not arguing that emotions didn’t play a role in the selection of a President, only that it wasn’t the one-sided thing that you depict.

HOw many people voted for McCain because they couldn’t stand the thought of Obama being President. Does not that constitute a decision based on emotion as well?
#707724

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:40 pm, bigterpfan said:

‘Tis okay. I am kind of a twerp.
#707730

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:42 pm, nail49 said:

Does not that constitute a decision based on emotion as well?

Point taken, but you have to admit emotions and not facts on the part of those who presented the two sides played a big part. Is “a tingle up one’s leg” an emotional thing or a factual thing?
#707731

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:43 pm, nail49 said:

I am kind of a twerp.

I’ve faced similar charges…
#707732

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:43 pm, CO2 Producer said:

Our electorate is dreadfully uninformed. Ask twenty people if they know the name Sotomayor, and one might say, “Sounds familiar. Where’s Soto—in Kansas?” America doesn’t want her because they’ve never heard of her. They won’t even remember her two days after she wins the seat. Unless the media finds something titillating or scandalous, Americans could give a rip about Supreme Court nominees.

Toto…I mean, Sotomayor’s probably a shoe-in. The Left demands that a liberal replaces a liberal, and the Repub’s will probably shrug their shoulders and mutter, “Unkay.” Hate to say it, but that’s what I’m guessing. America still thinks Denzel Washington or 24’s President Palmer won the election (they seem like such nice fellows), so I don’t hold my breath that We The People will pay much attention to this nomination.

My half a cent’s-worth on the RC/atheling dispute: I vote for the lesser of two evils in general elections unless I think a third party has a shot. Our choices for the position in the Oval Office during the last twenty years have been so lame, I voted for Perot both times he ran. Granted, he took votes away from Republicans, but Republicans had Bush Sr. and Dole. While I don’t mind them now, neither were worth writing home about. I voted for change I quarter-heartedly believed in, but now that I’m older and seniler, on some level I sigh in relief that Perot didn’t win. If America is choosing one or the other but not another other, I have to pick the side that has a shot at beating the worst candidate.
#707733

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:43 pm, Ragspierre said:

What you propose then, is control! You or I cannot control what another human being will read, or watch, regarding political information.

No. I purpose a much more skillful, intelligent process of persuasion, including education.

Again, I agree that our fellow citizens SHOULD be the kind of people our Founders hoped we would be. Of course, they knew that people would TEND not to be all they hoped, because they were keen observers of human nature. That is one of the reasons they regarded a free press as indispensable.

We agree, I think, that the MSM was shamelessly in the tank for THE ONE. My point is that is was literally unprecedented in history, and I think I’m in very good company in that view.

But our entire presidential selection process was miserable. Top to bottom.

I am not really butting heads with you. We agree on virtually all fundamental points. I merely think that we have information, and now need to use it intelligently to correct the problems we both perceive.

The larger question of whether this union can remain, as now so totally polarized, is one that I have grave doubts about, as well.
#707734

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:46 pm, bigterpfan said:

That question answers itself.

My main point remains that Obama won for a whole bunch of reasons. I don’t think blaming the press, accusing the voters of stupidity and the like is a very productive thing. I think the Republicans need to focus on getting better candidates for themselves and running better campaigns.
#707739

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:52 pm, atheling said:

Ragspierre:

I agree on the education part, but we don’t have the luxury of time to accomplish our objective, don’t you think?

The dumbing down of our electorate started 40 years ago, and now we are reaping the bitter fruits of that wrongful course. I do not think that 4 years will be sufficient to reverse the course. I really don’t.

The larger question of whether this union can remain, as now so totally polarized, is one that I have grave doubts about, as well.

Indeed. We have few alternatives, and the task of educating the American voter is Herculean, in terms of shoveling a lot of horse poop out of the proverbial stable.

I’m at a point that I’d rather spend my energy working towards a new union, as I think the present course is disastrous, and any attempt to salvage what we have now is futile.

“Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.” –Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:28

Since we cannot dispell them from our midst, we must remove ourselves from them, and start anew, with an informed and active citizenry.
#707751

On May 26th, 2009 at 6:02 pm, Ragspierre said:

Maybe…

One hope that I have…actually one of several…is that people do have the capacity to learn HUGE lessons from their mistakes. That is, of course, one of the virtues of freedom.

People don’t even have to fully understand why what they did was wrong, just that it was.

Mr. Reagan was elected. That is always a hopeful sign. Polling shows that people are not decidedly who they have been conditioned to be. That is a hopeful sign.

Time will tell…
#707761

On May 26th, 2009 at 6:14 pm, atheling said:

Mr. Reagan was elected. That is always a hopeful sign. Polling shows that people are not decidedly who they have been conditioned to be. That is a hopeful sign.

Ragspierre, that was almost 30 years ago. The American electorate are not the same people now as they were then.

I see my parents, grandparents, and other older, wiser, and more sensible people being replaced by 20 something, dumbed down hedonists, who voted for change, yet don’t even know how to count back change.

It’s a different country now. And it’s not better.
#707778

On May 26th, 2009 at 6:46 pm, dadinseattle said:

I would rather live in a society that followed the rule of law, since the Warren court, the “invented” interpretations coming out of the courts defy logic and are malignant.

The consequences have devastated our sense of order, values, and morals.

We see repeat offender felons waking for minor technicalities, states stripped of their actual authorities, and international laws usurping our constitutional principles.

It is a slap in the face to those whom have sacrificed to preserve freedom to have this nomination announced on the first day after Memorial Day.

You are more likely to pay a penalty for defending your family or property these days while the thug who broke in to rob or rape is looked on as a victim and likely to be freed to re-offend.

Judges like this one, are those whom have created this upside down reality, she needs to be opposed vigorously, yet sadly we have cowards afraid to do so in office.
#707785

On May 26th, 2009 at 6:57 pm, happy2behere said:

I stoppped throwin’ away my vote when I voted for Perot and we got Clinton. Remember the “giant sucking sound?” How right Perot was…
#707786

On May 26th, 2009 at 6:58 pm, twofoot said:

Been a long day following a long few weeks, so maybe somebody has already brought it up and I just missed it.

My question now is this; Will you now allow yourself to be bound by the laws this Congress and these liberal judges invent? Why should a citizen be bound by a law made by the current Congress, when the current Congress has shown it refuses to be bound by the Constitution?
#707792

On May 26th, 2009 at 7:04 pm, Ragspierre said:

Judges like this one, are those whom have created this upside down reality, she needs to be opposed vigorously, yet sadly we have cowards afraid to do so in office.

If we had heroes in office, we can’t win this fight. That mistake will take office. There is nothing that the GOP Senators can do to stop her. They SHOULD uniformly vote against her, but don’t look for even that.

What we CAN do is use this as another example of OVER-REACHING by THE ONE.

We can hang this racist and sexist nut firmly around his neck, and publicize her every chance we have.

Sad, but true.
#707837

On May 26th, 2009 at 7:52 pm, Ragspierre said:

President Obama’s radical new nominee to replace Associate Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, used to serve on the board of LatinoJustice PRLDEF (White House backgrounder), one of the racial grievance groups that helped to sink the judicial nomination of Honduran-born Miguel Estrada in 2003.

Along with groups such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), LatinoJustice fought a war of attrition against President George W. Bush’s 2001 nomination of conservative Miguel Estrada, a Honduran-born immigrant, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Democrats in the Senate filibustered the nomination and a weary Estrada withdrew from consideration in 2003.

Today LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit, hailed the nomination of Sotomayor on the basis of her ethno-cultural heritage. “As the second largest and fastest growing population in America, with a large pool of qualified individuals to choose from, it was wholly appropriate for the president to nominate a Hispanic,” the group said in a written statement. (PDF)

According to the group’s website, it gets some of its funding from George Soros’s Open Society Institute.

A search of philanthropy databases reveals other significant donors to LatinoJustice to be Carnegie Corporation of New York ($1,025,000 since 2000), Ford Foundation ($2,280,000 since 2001), Rockefeller Foundation ($1,275,000 since 2000), and JPMorganChase Foundation ($70,000 since 2001).

Hmmm… Kinda puts her in the Ainski camp, too…
#707849

On May 26th, 2009 at 8:02 pm, nuss said:

Sotomayor may be Barry’s best pick if he is trying to stack the SCOTUS deck should one of the 100’s of cases questioning his eligibilty to be POTUS ever gets a fair hearing in the courts.
#707863

On May 26th, 2009 at 8:16 pm, Rogue Cheddar said:

On May 26th, 2009 at 4:19 pm, atheling said:
Cheddar:

Your wife is smarter than you are.

I’d vote for Obama over Hitler.

She’s better looking too.

I see it’s just a matter of degrees with you. While Obama’s abhorrent to you today, tomorrow, he’d be your BFF if the other guy you deemed worse.
You have all the convictions of a weather vane. To you it’s all about the political strategy, no one guy too evil for your vote as long as the other guy isn’t the one you want.
Me, I’ll draw a line, you, you like to move the goal posts. Too many shades of gray for me.
#707885

On May 26th, 2009 at 8:51 pm, atheling said:

No, Rogue, I’m not a weather vane.

I’m realistic and pragmatic. You’re the one who, like a liberal, lives in a dream world.

Poliktics is about strategy, and so long as you maintain your childish and silly view that you must have a perfect candidate, our country will be at risk because of your foolishness.

Had the US and its allies maintained your kind of “purity”, we would never have allied ourselves with Stalin to defeat Hitler. How do you reconcile that? Were we wrong in doing so?

A quote from someone whose judgment I trust far more than yours:

In war, as in life, it is often necessary, when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might. – Winston Churchill
#707979

On May 27th, 2009 at 1:44 am, rocketman said:

***
We’ll have to modify the statue of LADY JUSTICE with the blindfold and scales of justice when Sonia Sotomayor takes her place on the SCOTUS.
***
Take off the blindfold and put her thumb on one of the scale pans–the AFFIRMATIVE ACTION pan.
***
She should really help President Obama (PBUH) finish trashing the Constitution and our liberties.
***
John Bibb
***
#708043

On May 27th, 2009 at 7:17 am, DenizenZERO said:

Imagine that if, during the presidential race, McCain had said that his experiences as a white man in the military would allow him to come to a better decision than a black man.

Yeah. That would’ve gone over REAL well.
#708096

On May 27th, 2009 at 9:04 am, Rogue Cheddar said:

On May 26th, 2009 at 8:51 pm, atheling said:
No, Rogue, I’m not a weather vane.

I’m realistic and pragmatic. You’re the one who, like a liberal, lives in a dream world.

Oh yes, comparing political strategy of who’s going to be our president for the next four years, to a war for the very survival of Europe, possibly the world, oh yeah that’s realistic. Please, if you think McCain wouldn’t have put this country at risk with more shamnesty and further abridging freedom of speech, and bailouts, you’re the one living in a dream world. Me, I’d like to raise the bar a little for my Presidential candidates, you, not so much.
#708143

On May 27th, 2009 at 10:02 am, Weary Citizen said:

Amen Rogue Cheddar. Always choosing the lesser of 2 evils and compromising on every issue to pull in a few more slightly left of center votes has been the impetus for our country’s lurch left on all issues. Now any real conservative is branded a far right wing nut (most of which would be barely right of center 40 years ago). The end result will be the socialization of America since any true opposition will be marginalized.
#708325

On May 27th, 2009 at 12:43 pm, atheling said:

Yeah, in the meantime, while you vote for someone who has no chance of winning, you hand the victory to the Left.

Way to go.
#708374

On May 27th, 2009 at 1:13 pm, Weary Citizen said:

OK. So voting lesser of 2 evils election after election gave us a candidate that supports amnesty (a strategy proven disatrous after the 1986 amnesty), is a fervent supporter of “diversssityy” and “toollleranncce”, who has sold out conservative values time and again in the name of “compromise’ and on and on. If conservatives had stood up long ago perhaps we wouldn’t have had mcamnesty as a candidate in the first place. So what now, continue down the move left strategy. Oh yea, that’s a proven strategy. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting…..
#708500

On May 27th, 2009 at 4:05 pm, atheling said:

Weary Citizen:

You are engaging in a straw man. I never advocated moving left. I am talking about being handed two crappy lifeboats as the options for escaping a sinking ship.
#708501

On May 27th, 2009 at 4:05 pm, atheling said:

And I notice that Rogue never answered my question about our alliance with Uncle Joe during WWII.

Do please, answer, Rogue, instead of evading.
#708545

On May 27th, 2009 at 5:06 pm, Weary Citizen said:

No strawman here. History proves I am correct. Every election cycle the repubs trot out a more “centrist” candidate than the last, hoping to capture a few more votes. We went form Reagan, to Bush Sr, and after a few election losses Bush Jr (barely center) to the king of RINO’s mcamnesty. And now? Many of the gop elites are calling for even more liberal policies/thinking in order to get more votes (ie powell, steele, etc). Why do they do this? Because leemings that vote “r” becasue they are not a “d” continue to support their sorry b*tts. People like Rogue and myself actually practice what the founding fathers envisioned. We evaluate all candidates based on their policy stands and choose the one that best mathches our own vision of the country. Not what some party hack tells us to think. The true “lazy” course is to pull the “r” lever and be done (unless of course you truly support the gop party platform). But hey, if supporting a liberal republican over a liberal democrat is your your thing, then have at it. It’s a free country brother (for now). But don’t expect the republican party to become more conservative if they are not forced to do so. They know they have your vote so there is no need to pander to the passee conservatives. They will pander only to those they can’t count on (conservatives like Rogue and I or centrists). The GOP will not change until they realize pandering to the leftists is a losing proposition. Bank on it.
#708602

On May 27th, 2009 at 6:36 pm, 2Brave2Bscared said:

I really wish I could respond to atheling’s idiocy, but for some reason none of my comments are going through. Why is that?
#708626

On May 27th, 2009 at 7:02 pm, 2Brave2Bscared said:

There we go. Finally got through.

You are engaging in a straw man.

No, it is you who is engaging in a strawman. You are the one claiming that those of us who refused to vote for your “lesser of two evils” candidate did so entirely because he wasn’t “perfect.” You act as if McCain was one or two issues short of conservative purity. But in reality he was nothing of the sort. Indeed, the man was and is a full fledged liberal who sold out conservative principles on countless fronts (immigration being one of the biggest) and who takes delight in stabbing conservatives in the back any chance he gets.

The man has no honor, no principled conservative integrity. His liberalism is leading us toward the very same kind of tyrannical oppression that you fear from the left, albeit at a slightly slower, less noticeable pace. And yet this is the kind of man you think conservatives should have supported.

You are delusional. You say we must embrace the “lesser of two evils” for the greater good, but I say where has that bankrupt pragmatic strategy gotten us over the years? No where good.

It was once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. This perfectly captures the mindset of atheling.

Well, I and others like me reject your insane, suicidal way of thinking. Supporting liberalism lite every election cycle may slow down the progressive agenda a bit, but the train will reach the same destination nonetheless. That is why mindlessly supporting the “lesser of two evils” every single time out, no matter how much worse the evils become, is nothing but a guaranteed losing strategy. It’s suicidal and insane.

What’s needed is a rejection of liberalism altogether, not just the more radicals elements and agents of it. In the short-term things may very well get worse, but it is the only way that in the long term things can ever hope to get better.

Someday, hopefully, atheling will grow up and realize this before its too late.
#708632

On May 27th, 2009 at 7:09 pm, 2Brave2Bscared said:

People like Rogue and myself actually practice what the founding fathers envisioned. We evaluate all candidates based on their policy stands and choose the one that best mathches our own vision of the country. Not what some party hack tells us to think.

Yes. The Founders had a name for people like atheling: party men. At that time in American history, that was one of the more insulting labels you could give a person. Now party politics is everything, to the detriment of us all.
#708650

On May 27th, 2009 at 8:33 pm, Rogue Cheddar said:

On May 27th, 2009 at 12:43 pm, atheling said:
Yeah, in the meantime, while you vote for someone who has no chance of winning, you hand the victory to the Left.

Way to go.

There you go again, blaming me for you and your candidate’s shortcomings.

Also I’m not evading your question about the alliance with your Uncle Joe, I had just forgotten about it because
of the nonsensical comparison you had made. I trust that Winston made what he deemed an absolutely vital choice for the fight against a superior and unrelenting deadly foe (in no sane way comparable to a Presidential campaign). But I must ask, is this before or after Uncle Joe was known to have systematically murdered millions of civilians and political dissidents?
#708709

On May 28th, 2009 at 1:27 am, Winghunter said:

Six of Eight Sotomayor Decisions Reversed, One Pending.

* Ricci v. DeStefano 530 F.3d 87 (2008) – SCOTUS decision pending as of 5/26/2009

* Riverkeeper, Inc. vs. EPA, 475 F.3d 83 (2007) – Reversed 6-3 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg)

* Knight vs. Commissioner, 467 F.3d 149 (2006) – Upheld, but reasoning was unanimously faulted

* Dabit vs. Merrill Lynch, 395 F.3d 25 (2005) – Reversed 8-0

* Empire Healthchoice Assurance, Inc. vs. McVeigh, 396 F.3d 136 (2005) – Reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Breyer, Kennedy, Souter, Alito)

* Malesko v. Correctional Services Corp., 299 F.3d 374 (2000) – Reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer)

* Tasini vs. New York Times, et al, 972 F. Supp. 804 (1997) – Reversed 7-2 (Dissenting: Stevens, Breyer)

* The European Community vs. RJR Nabisco, 355 F.3d 123 (2004) – Judgment vacated and sent back to appeals court
#709201

On May 28th, 2009 at 5:00 pm, yohannbiimu said:

On May 26th, 2009 at 5:11 pm, lgm said:

Economic impacts are important only because they lead to impacts on actual people. There are other ways to impact people. Anti gay laws impact gays, for example.

What the hell are “anti gay laws?” What laws are in the books that discriminate against gays? Marriage is regarded as a religious and holy institution. The United States Constitution is supposed to have a hands-off policy with regard to such matters, and the courts likewise cannot rule upon what people of faith can or cannot do with regard to their rites and ceremonies.

If you want to get married to your same-sex partner, then you need find a way to get a religious institution to accept the concept of same-sex marriage. I know that you constitution-hating statists want to bring about an oligarchy that can dictate whatever policies you want to bare down upon everyone, but at the moment, there is still a precarious notion that we have a rule of law, and it is still supposed to protect our institutions and communities from deviant ideas that threaten them.