Politics Can Be Brutal

Antonin Scalia

Saturday night, I heard about the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Immediately, a thought came to my mind: How soon would it be before the sides started to jockey for political positioning.

Well, it did not take long. The death of Justice Scalia has major stakes, politically speaking. While the sides balance sympathy for the Scalia family, it was all too inevitable that the sides (liberal and conservative, alike) would begin to battle.

But, honestly, the idea that replacing Justice Scalia should wait until there's a new president, nearly 11 months from now, is ridiculous. Join us in reality, here.

Honestly, though, people need to straight-up chill. The man just passed away and both sides are already fighting about a replacement that has not even be announced. But, in this day of hyper partisanship, should we really be all that surprised?

I was not and am not surprised.

No one should be surprised.

Are U.S. Supreme Court Right Wingers Set To Show True Bias Against President Obama?

Rumors abound that some of the U.S. Supreme Court justices are considering not attending the President's upcoming State of the Union address.

It was a topic of discussion this past weekend on Fox News Sunday as U.S. Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer was interviewed.

Some of the justices apparently have their panties in a bunch because President Barack Obama was critical of one of their decisions.

If these justices are that weak, that they can't take that little bit of criticism, then that truly is disturbing.

BUT, if they are whining and pouting because they are upset with the politics of what President Obama said, then that is pathetic.

Aren't judges/justices supposed to be impartial? Would their protest (should it happen) be indicative of a U.S. Supreme Court that truly is political?

From Crooks and Liars:

During his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama criticized the court's Citizens United decision which said that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts cannot be limited.

"With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said.

"Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps corrects some of these problems," he added.

While Democratic lawmakers cheered for the president's remarks, Justice Samuel Alito could be seen mouthing the words "not true."

Weeks later, Chief Justice John Roberts said the address had "degenerated to a political pep rally."

"The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering, while the court -- according to the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling," Roberts said to University of Alabama law students.

It will be interesting to see what whiners like John Roberts, Sam Alito and high-court right wingers do.

Crooks and Liars:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/justice-breyer-very-important-attend-state-u

Virginia Thomas Brings Up Ancient History In Asking Anita Hill For An Apology

I can still remember it, and it's stunning to think that it was like 19 years ago the nation experienced the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill drama as it played out on national television during Thomas's U.S. Supreme Court nomination hearings.

Fast forward to present-day U.S.

This is from Media Matters for America:

A few days ago, Brandeis University professor Anita Hill received a message on her voice mail at work.

"Good morning, Anita Hill, it's Ginny Thomas," said the voice. "I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day."

Are you serious? Is she still so troubled by that episode that she wants to bring it back into the national spotlight - nearly two decades after it all went down?

Well, the answer seems to be, "YES."

Now, as a full confession, this all happened during the days when I was more of a conservative (prior to my personal enlightenment). At the time, my feelings were that Thomas had the right to be a U.S. Supreme Court justice (even though I had no reason and have no reason to doubt Anita Hill's story).

Still, it is interesting that Ginny Thomas is back on this story.

Here's more from the article originally posted by ABC:

Mark Matthews of our affiliate KGO learned about this and reached out to Virginia Thomas.

Thomas e-mailed him, saying: "I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get past what happened so long ago. That offer still stands, I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended."

No offense was intended, huh? What in the world is Virginia Thomas thinking? She makes a call essentially demanding an apology and then calls it an "olive branch" in a follow-up conversation via e-mail. I imagine Anita Hill is doing a better job of getting past the issue than is Ginny Thomas, who seems to still be quite troubled.

Virginia Thomas should have exorcised her own demons before stepping to Anita Hill. Her voicemail sounds/reads like the message of a person with major issues to confront.

Chris Wallace Schooled By Ted Olson On Prop 8 Gay Marriage Argument

Ted Olson, shown here in this photo, made easy work of Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, who weakly attempted to discredit Mr. Olson's position on Prop 8 in California.

At first, I thought Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace was simply trying to be tough on Ted Olson, a distinguished and conservative attorney.

Ultimately, however, it was clear that Wallace (in that old Fox News tradition) was merely advocating an extreme conservative agenda and Olson was a man who was in the way of this runaway far-right freight train.

Wallace's freight train, however, was derailed by a far superior intellect.

Olson made national (maybe worldwide) headlines as he helped successfully argued for the federal ruling that overturned Prop 8, a highly controversial ban on same-sex marriage.

Olson, most famous for arguing victoriously for George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore at the U.S. Supreme Court 10 years ago (a ruling which essentially ended any chance of a recount and gave the election to Bush), was simply too tough for the overmatched Wallace (who must of inexplicably thought he had an easy Sarah Palin-like mark ... not that he would be tough on Palin).

Wallace became little more than an appetizer as, in futile fashion, he tried to trip up Olson. But, you don't send your local middle school team to play the NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers.

In this case, however, Fox News did just that with Wallace v. Olson.

Are Conservatives Ignoring/Supporting Slavery With Attacks On Marshall, Kagan?

Republicans, in an effort to attack U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, are declaring open season on anyone in their path: including the late, great Thurgood Marshall, the first black man to serve on the Court.

I had a chance to check out Media Matters for America to take in its research on an attack that conservatives are now engaging in as they attack Justice Marshall.

First, the background. Kagan, who clerked for Marshall, cited a statement by the former justice, who stated that the Constitution, as it was originally composed, was "defective." Right wingers have now begun to attack Marshall to try and suggest that he was some kind of an anti-American radical (a familiar tactic for conservatives who attack minorities). And, as is usually the case, Republicans are completely misguided about Marshall and have taken his comments out of context in a deliberate effort to portray him in the most negative light possible.

When Marshall talked about the Constitution as "defective" he did so because it permitted slavery and denied women the rights that they deserved. But, why would conservatives let the facts get in the way of a good smear.

Below is what Media Matters for America wrote as it documented the full context of what Marshall had to say.

Marshall: Original Constitution was "defective," required amendments to end slavery, guarantee women's suffrage. In his May 6, 1987 speech to the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Law Association, Marshall -- the first African-American Supreme Court justice -- stated:

I cannot accept this invitation, for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever "fixed" at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite "The Constitution," they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.

For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we need look no further than the first three words of the document's preamble: 'We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America's citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes at threefifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years.

These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States.

Despite this clear understanding of the role slavery would play in the new republic, use of the words "slaves" and "slavery" was carefully avoided in the original document. Political representation in the lower House of Congress was to be based on the population of "free Persons" in each State, plus threefifths of all "other Persons." Moral principles against slavery, for those who had them, were compromised, with no explanation of the conflicting principles for which the American Revolutionary War had ostensibly been fought: the selfevident truths "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Marshall was not randomly attacking the Constitution as some black radical, who hated America. To the contrary, Marshall believed in the greatness of America to right wrongs over the course of time.

Historically, righting the wrongs has helped make the Constitution stronger today than it was when blacks were held as slaves and women were treated unfairly.

But, the fact that the Constitution allowed slavery and women to be treated as less than equal was lost on the mind of far-right talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who rarely wastes an opportunity to attack black people.

LIMBAUGH: I wanted to go even further, so here the last paragraph, we find out even more about Thurgood Marshall, who Elena Kagan idolized:

"During the year that marked the bicentennial of the Constitution, Justice Marshall gave a characteristically candid speech. He declared" -- this is a law review article that she wrote -- "he declared that the Constitution, as originally drafted and conceived, was 'defective'; only over the course of 200 years had the nation 'attain[ed] the system of constitutional government, and its respect for . . . individual freedoms and human rights, that we hold as fundamental today.' The Constitution today, the Justice continued, contains a great deal to be proud of. '[B]ut the credit does not belong to the Framers. It belongs to those who refused to acquiesce in outdated notions of "liberty," "justice," and "equality,'" and who strived to better them.' The credit, in other words, belongs to people like Justice Marshall. As the many thousands who waited on the Supreme Court steps will know, our modem Constitution is his."

So, this is who Elena Kagan idolizes, Justice Marshall, who said the Constitution as originally drafted and conceived was 'defective,' and only over the course of 200 years with people like him on the Supreme Court had it become worth anything.

Notice the attempt to demonize Marshall and Kagan through Marshall?

Limbaugh seems to leave out the parts about slavery and women's rights.

Was this an oversight on his part?

Limbaugh is an individual conservatives love, who relishes taking a shot at a great man like Justice Thurgood Marshall who did so much for so many people.

I am no law scholar, but what Marshall said about the original Constitution being "defective" was right on the money, and is obvious.

Jim Quinn Calling Anyone Racist Is Laughable … Although …

… maybe conservative radio show host Jim Quinn speaks from the voice of experience in regards to being a racist. Rather than focus on his own racism, he chooses to manufacture racism in others.

Here is what Quinn, as documented by Media Matters for America, had to say about Judge Sonia Sotomayor as she is embarking on her confirmation hearings for a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court:

QUINN (ON SOTOMAYOR): A racist woman with a racial chip on her shoulder, steeped in identity politics.

Here is how one person responded on Media Matters for America: Quinn: A racist man with a racial chip on his shoulder, steeped in stupidity.

This is from the Daily Kos quoting Wiki:

On November 6, 2008, Quinn compared modern welfare recipients to slaves, saying “You know, if you were a slave in the old South, what did you get as a slave? You got free room and board, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children because that was just, you know, tomorrow’s slave. … Can I ask a question? How’s that different from welfare? You get a free house, you get free food, and you get rewarded for having children. Oh, wait a minute, hold on a second. There is a difference: The slave had to work for it.” Quinn apologized for that remark. However, he has not apologized for his June 24, 2008 statement, “Slavery was evil, there’s no question about that. But you know what? If it hadn’t happened, where would you be right now? If your ancestors hadn’t come over here for whatever reason where would you be right now? You’d be floating down a river in Rwanda in pieces or maybe you’d be chased down by a machete wielding Janjaweed militia in the Sudan or starving under Robert Mugabe. Hey, ingrates, get on your knees, kiss the American dirt beneath you and please shut up.”

Here is another Quinn beauty:

On The War Room with Quinn & Rose, Jim Quinn said: “You know, if you were a slave in the old South, what did you get as a slave? You got free room and board, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children because that was just, you know, tomorrow’s slave. … Can I ask a question? How’s that different from welfare? You get a free house, you get free food, and you get rewarded for having children. Oh, wait a minute, hold on a second. There is a difference: The slave had to work for it.”

What an interesting despicable way of repackaging slavery and trying to put a bow tie on the atrocity of slavery. But, should we expect anything less from Jim Quinn.

Media Matters:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907130035

Former First Ladt Laura Bush Endorses Sonia Sotomayor For U.S. Supreme Court?

Former First Lady Laura Bush, who generally seems to keep a level head as far as politics are concerned, has offered what sounds like an endorsement of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the nominee of President Obama, for the U.S. Supreme Court.

BUSH: I think she sounds like a winner and a good nominee.

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/08/laura-bush-sotomayor-soun_n_212424.html

Compilation Of White (Male) Right’s Activist Pat Buchanan Smearing Sonia Sotomayor

Media Matters assembled this series of clips of Pat Buchanan, sounding like an activist for the rights of white males, smearing Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court justice David Souter.

Sen. Lindsey Graham Falls For The Sexist Stereotyping Of Judge Sonia Sotomayor

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, is falling for sexist stereotyping of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Think of how exceedingly rare it is for men to be criticized as having temperament problems. It’s something you here frequently with women because they are supposed to carry themselves in a more docile and less aggressive fashion. It’s a shame Graham is still living in the gender-role dark ages with this tired stereotype. Graham has been a part of a sizable group of right-wing people running down Judge Sotomayor. He has not trashed her as bad as other right wingers, but it’s safe to question his ability to fairly judge her. All of the criticisms of her are based mostly on out-of-context statements and smears from anonymous sources (talking about her temperament).

GRAHAM: I believe she does have the intellectual capacity, but there is a character problem, there is a temperament problem.

Some Republicans continue to reach hard to blow anything out of proportion to find a way to derail Judge Sotomayor’s candidacy for the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s a shame Sen. Graham seems incapable of judging her by what he has seen with his own eyes and heard with his own ears. Instead, it seems the senator is more interested in anything negative from her – regardless of the source or the motive of the source.

Right wingers are reaching because they have very little real ammunition to use against Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who has a strong record and is a worthy candidate to replace the retiring David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/03/graham-sotomayor-character/

Read the Think Progress story closely. At the end, the author posts a video where it seems Sen. Graham may have contradicted himself.

Lindsey Graham Continues To Take Sonia Sotomayor’s Comments Out Of Context

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham was on Fox News Sunday taking U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s comments out of context to inflame the Republican base. Sen. Graham, like so many others, chooses to take the comments of Sotomayor out of context to fire up the largely white and very conservative Republican base (this is, of course, why you hear people like Pat Buchanan referring to her as an affirmative action selection).

“What she said is that based on her life experiences is that she thought a Latina woman, somebody with her background, would be a better judge than a guy like me — a white guy from South Carolina,” Graham said. “It is troubling, and it’s inappropriate and I hope she’ll apologize.”

She has nothing to apologize for with regard to those comments. What Sen. Graham and others on the right should apologize for is taking what she said out of context. Perhaps if they put it into context, to be fair, and then called for an apology … they might have a (shaky) leg to stand on.

Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/31/graham-calls-sotomayor-apologize-wise-latina-statement/

Surprise, Surprise, Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly Jumps To Conclusion, Takes Sonia Sotomayor’s Comments Out Of Context

Megyn Kelly, of Fox News, takes out of context a comment from Sonia Sotomayor and tries to hold the race hammer over her head. Kelly, like others, is working what few angles they have to try and trip up Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring justice David Souter. Take the time to read the Media Matters for Americastory to get the full story to better understand these out-of-context attacks from the far right on Sonia Sotomayor.

First, thanks to Media Matters for America, here is what Kelly said:

KELLY: Your thoughts on this controversial quote that she offered up on Latina judges? This was Judge Sotomayor speaking back at the University of Berkeley Law School in 2001, and I’ll read you what she said and ask if you are able to put this in perspective for us.

She says, quote, “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 has not lived that life.” You know, that sounds to a lot of people like reverse racism, basically. Like she’s saying that Latina judges are obviously better than white male judges, and that that’s her assumption, and people get worried about putting a person like that on the U.S. Supreme Court.

REP. JOSE SERRANO [D-NY]: Right. And like I said, we’re gonna hang on everything she’s ever said — if she has said them. I think the key there is, “I would hope,” just like I have said at times throughout my life that when you come with this background that I came, that I would hope I would be always true to believing when I legislate in Congress — and I’ve been in Congress 20 years, and in the state Assembly 16 years before that — that I would keep in mind that while I’m legislating for the whole country, I also have to keep in mind what it is that I bring to that legislation. My personal experience and how it is to fight yourself out of poverty. All she was saying is –

KELLY: But is there a role for that on the bench? It’s different, some would argue, for you, because you’re an elected lawmaker.

SERRANO: Well, there is a role in that you never forget who you are. I mean, she has made decisions based on what the law is and what the Constitution says. That’s what she’ll be doing.

[...]

KELLY: What I want to ask you about, Tim [O'Brien], is these prior statements, because as much of a moment as we may be having now watching this and just rooting for her as a human being, there are some problematic statements that she’s made in the past that are gonna come up at these confirmation hearings. And the one we’ve been talking about is this one where she says — and I want to get it right: “I would hope a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male.”

And I – now I’ve looked at the entire speech that she was offering to see if that was taken out of context, and I have to tell you, Tim, it wasn’t. In fact, she goes on — she says, “Justice O’Connor has often been cited” — that was our first female justice — “has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.”

She says, “I’m not so sure I agree with that statement.” And then she goes on to say that “people from different backgrounds will come to different decisions” and she said that “one must accept the proposition that a difference will be created by the presence of women and people of color on the bench and their personal experiences.” Now, is that just a statement of fact, Tim, or is that in fact controversial?

Sorry, Megyn, but you are taking what Sonia Sotomayor said out of its original context. Here is what Sotomayor said, in full context:

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other(s) simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

Of course, the Megyn Kellys of the world interpret her comments in the worst possible light (that she is a reverse racist who thinks Latinas can make better decisions than white men). Read Sotomayor’s comments a little more closely and understand the context in which she made these statements (talking about diversity and how that can impact the court) that many on the right find so offensive. She was talking about race and discrimination cases and how diversity can be beneficial during the decision-making process for such cases. People like the conservative Megyn Kelly act as if Sotomayor walked out of a fast-food restaurant and, with little context, declared Latinas are better judges than white men. That is a mischaracterization. You have to put her comments into the proper context to be fair. I mean, if you’re a fair and balanced news outlet, that’s what you would do.

Media Matters for America:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200905260050

Sonia Sotomayor Can Expect To Be Attacked By Far-Right Extremists

It appears that President Barack Obama is going to nominate federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace the retiring David Souter. The reports have been circulating around all of the major media news outlets this morning. If confirmed, the 54-year-old Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic and only the third woman (currently, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg serves) ever to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Sotomayor’s reported nomination is hardly a big surprise as she has been on what many have speculated to be President Obama’s short list for quite some time.

Now, however, comes the hard part. Sotomayor’stoughness will be tested as the far-right nuts will begin attacking any high-court nominee that does not fit their ideological vision of what a U.S. Supreme Court Justice is supposed to be. That should not matter. Nothing I have read about Sonia Sotomayor puts her outside reasonable mainstream beliefs. What should matter, about Sonia Sotomayor, are her qualifications. As much as I was not (and am not) a fan of Clarence Thomas, I supported President George H.W. Bush’s right to nominate him to the high court.

Besides, Sotomayor’s selection will do nothing to tilt the liberal-conservative balance of the U.S. Supreme Court since she is replacing Souter.

Still, I doubt that will matter to many people as the attacks on Sonia Sotomayor begin. Check that, the attacks have already begun (they started when she was first rumored to be on President Obama’s list).