Keeping it real on Sotomayor:
The Supreme Court’s rejection of a decision against white firefighters endorsed by Judge Sonia Sotomayor gives Republicans a renewed chance to attack her speeches and writings but is not expected to imperil her confirmation to the high court, political and legal sources said yesterday.
I guess the summer silly season is as good a time as any for this.
SpotWeld
I for one will be spending the weekend instead dealing with the sound and the furry (in Pittsburgh).
PaulW
Obama could have chosen Oliver Wendell Holmes for the Supreme Court and the conservatives would still attack the nomination with the same amount of venom. It’s all about hurting Obama and the Democrats, no matter the cost, no matter how stupid they make themselves. Just look at them salivating over the Ricci decision. How the hell does a 5-4 decision become 9-0??? Kongratulashuns Konservateves, we Now Know you Kan’t Kount!
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
I’m more concerned about Thomas being the 1 justice to decide that strip-searching a 13-year-old girl was constitutional. The other 8 disagreed with him. So if Sotomayor was wrong by a 5-4 decision, that makes Thomas a pedophile that endorses molesting teenage girls.
chopper
but sotomayor decided that settled law and precedent should steer an appellate court’s decision! don’t you see, that’s the worst kind of judicial activism.
Litlebritdifrnt
Chuck Todd had an interesting take this morning, he basically said that in the lower court’s decision they were following established law, whereas SCOTUS with their decision have basically made up a new law and were legislating from the bench. So the conservative justices were “legislating from the bench” and the libs were “following established law” wonder how the wingnuts are going to spin that one?
PS) John the maters were romas and thanks for the compliments about my flowers. Sorry to hear about your veggie plants, I have had some spectacular disasters this year thanks to bugs and since I stay organic I am just going to roll with the punches and try again later in the year with some new plants.
PPS) If your mater plants committed suicide it may be tomato spotted wilt virus, you will have to burn the plants and will more than likely not be successful in the same spot with new ones.
http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Virus_SpottedWilt.htm
John S.
Even more fascinating was the decision yesterday in the state of New York vs. federal bank regulators.
It was a 5-4 ruling, but with Scalia writing the majority opinion while siding with the four liberal justices. Roberts, Alito and company were all in the minority.
Strange times, my friends.
Comrade Stuck
@chopper:
Second only to judges whose decisions cause wingnuts to actively make hypocritical fools of themselves.
John PM
Actually, the Republican meme needs to be taken down a few further pegs in addition to the 9-0 nonsense. To the extent that anyone is saying that Sotomayor wrote the decision of the Second Circuit, they are incorrect. SCOTUS blog gets closer when it says that Sotomayor endorsed the decision of the federal district court in Connecticut, but even that is not entirely accurate. Here is the relevant passage from Justice Ginsberg’s dissent:
There was no decision from the Second Circuit that was authored, but merely an order saying that the Second Circuit was adopting the well-reasoned opinion of the district court. The firefighters then brought a motion for rehearing by all 13 judges of the Second Circuit. Rehearing was denied 7-6. Several judges on the Second Circuit wrote both in support of and in dissent of the decision to deny rehearing en banc (by the entire panel). Notably, Sotomayor was not one of those judges. Another interesting fact is that the main opinions on both sides of the denial of rehearing en banc were all Clinton appointees.
Including the district court and the Second Circuit Judges, in total 8 judges supported New Haven’s position, while 5 supported the firefighters. Because the 5 who supported the firefighters were all on the Supreme Court, the firefighters ultimately won, although they will still have to show what their damages were since the proceeding was only at the summary judgment stage.
WHEREFORE, BASED ON THE FOREGOING, Republicans can suck it!
Respectfully submitted,
etc., etc.
shelley matheis
Silly season indeed. If you went by the comments over on Free Republic, you’d think it was election night and Palin had, oops sorry, McCain had won. I felt like posting, “Jeez, calm down, guys. You must be reeeeally desperate for some kind of ‘good’ news. Well, this ain’t it. It’s hardly a ‘slap in the face’ to the Obama administration. And how unusual do you think it is for a judge to have one of their decisions reversed in their lifetime?”
JohnR
And yet, the morning blurb on NPR said something to the effect that this decision would give ammunition to those who criticized Sotomayor’s decision. It’s like being eaten to death by waves of cockroaches – it comes from everywhere, there’s no escape, and it’s simply wrong.
Brachiator
There is a tactical issue at work here as well. Dubya kept pushing judicial nominess, and even finagled them onto the bench with recess appointments if necessary. And even when they were rejected by the Senate, Bush would resurrect them from the dead.
The GOP wants to try to flex their muscles somewhere, and the court appears to be a place where they retain some influence.
Obama, on the other hand, wants Sotomayor seated so that she can be part of the Court’s opening session in the fall. Supreme Court appointments are one of the few areas where a president can assert his (or her) will. Even more than a legislative victory, Obama needs to vanquish the GOP here in order to clearly knock down their assumptions about who is in charge.
Daniel
Good to see we live in such post-partisan times, eh?
Funny thing about the role of Justice is that it’s not at all a meritocracy. Alito had plenty of decisions overturned as well and yet we managed to become Justice.
However, to quote New Haven firefighter Mike Marcarelli, “You know, this is not about Judge Sotomayor. This is about 20 New Haven firefighters that were denied promotion on the basis of their race, and we fought a long, hard battle, not just for ourselves, but for firefighters and public safety personnel and public safety in general throughout the country.” (as quoted at newsy.com)
I think it’s worth considering while we’re busy attacking each other (which I’d argue is actually a good thing, since it’s the assumption that our check and balance system relies on) that there are other issues which, while affected by politics, really aren’t about politics.