Sotomayor lied about the right to bear arms; what's Kagan going to lie about as she bobs and weaves in the kabuki theater

The most important question members of the Senate Judiciary Committee should ask Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is, "Who do you think you are kidding?"

The hearings process for high court nominees has become ritualized to the point that it is almost useless. Nominees are extensively coached to avoid voicing a real opinion. There is no intellectual give and take. Spontaneity is largely absent. Anyone who can reasonably keep his cool and regurgitate platitudes for a few hours can enjoy a lifetime appointment to the most important judicial body in the land.

Ms. Kagan is playing her expected role in the predictable manner. We saw the same kabuki dance during the hearings for Justice Sonia Sotomayor less than a year ago. When asked by the sympathetic Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, if she agreed that "the Supreme Court decided in Heller that the personal right to bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution against federal law restrictions," Ms. Sotomayor answered: "It is." Yet her answer to this obviously staged question was untruthful. On Monday, Justice Sotomayor joined the Supreme Court minority in saying that there is "nothing in the Second Amendment's text, history or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as 'fundamental,' insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes." In other words, when she said the right to bear arms was guaranteed, she lied.

For her part, Ms. Kagan is equally dishonest when she says that she would approach her duty impartially. We know the intellectual milieu from which she has emerged. We know that her heart and mind are devoted to leftist causes and that she can be counted on to find rationales to further those aims in whatever cases come before the court.

Attorney Mia Reini looks at the confirmation conversions of Sonia Sotomayor, since reconverted, and Elena Kagan

We’ve seen it before, we’ll see it again, and it goes something like this: a Supreme Court candidate espouses radical views throughout her career; same candidate is nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court with White House assurances that she is a moderate; during her confirmation hearings, candidate undergoes a “confirmation conversion” and no longer holds the same radical views; once on the Supreme Court, candidate returns right back to her old ways. We saw it with Sonia Sotomayor. We’ll see it again from Elena Kagan.

Let’s walk through the steps of Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation conversion. First, the radical views. As a Second Circuit judge, Sotomayor espoused such extreme views in the controversial case of Ricci v. DeStefano that even Clinton-appointed judge José Cabranes found it shocking, and the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned her decision. Then there was the egregious Second Circuit case of Maloney v. Cuomo where she held that the Second Amendment right to bear arms only applies to the federal government. And her infamous “A Latina judge’s voice” speech at Berkeley: “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.”

Second came the White House assurances that Sotomayor was not, contrary to her own words, a judicial activist, but was “a nonideological and restrained judge.”

Third, Sotomayor’s confirmation conversion during her Senate hearings: “No, sir, I wouldn’t approach the issue of judging the way the President does. Judges can’t rely on what’s in their heart. They don’t determine the law. Congress makes the laws. The job of a judge is to apply the law.”

But once safely confirmed to the nation’s highest court, Sotomayor was back to her old ways, casting her first Supreme Court vote to join three other liberal justices in an unsuccessful effort to stop the execution of a hit man in Ohio. And in direct contradiction to what she espoused during her confirmation conversion, Sotomayor joined these same justices in using foreign law to interpret our Constitution in the case of Graham v. Florida.

As for Elena Kagan, her radical views have been well-documented, including her senior thesis where she found the decline of socialism in the United States to be “sad,” as well as her decision to kick the U.S. military off of Harvard’s campus during a time of war.

Sotomayor a racist who "cooed" at the right time

"Since no one seems overly concerned about putting a racist on the Supreme Court-- provided it is a politically correct racist-- the moral of the story seems to be that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, that doesn't matter if it coos like a dove at Senate confirmation hearings."

(snip}

"How long will it be before the public gets tired of the little know-it-all sermonettes by Barack Obama-- especially since nothing that he is doing is actually working?"

Given this breakdown, Sotomayor has no chance

"A Zogby poll released this week showed that among Hispanics who felt that they had read or heard enough about Sotomayor to make a decision on her nomination, 43% were opposed to her confirmation and 47% were opposed."

Red State roasts Sen. Lindsey Grahamnesty

"Several years ago in a Senate Judiciary Committee Mark-Up, in a very different time, Sen. Lindsey Graham made a wise-crack to his Democrat colleagues along the lines of “well, one day, when Democrats get back in power… I mean, not in my lifetime…(laughter).”

Well, it didn’t take long, Senator. Here we are. And in a moment of clarity - you remind us, yet again - of the cancer in the Republican Party that is responsible to bringing us from 55 members to 40 in a little over two years. You are a pathetic excuse for a Senator… Incapable of maintaining an ounce of principle in your decisions - and giving up the game that your motives are entirely political."

http://www.redstate.com/

Sotomayor willing to deny her beliefs under oath

"Judge Sotomayor will get the nod because (a) she’s a Hispanic woman, (b) she believes that being a Hispanic woman makes her more qualified to judge matters than people who aren’t Hispanic women, and (c) she’s prepared to deny under oath that she believes what she believes.

If Judge Sotomayor hadn’t embraced identity politics, it’s unlikely she would have been Barack Obama’s choice. Being a Hispanic woman, while a necessary condition, wouldn’t have been sufficient. Without being the kind of person who holds that a “wise Latina” would reach a better conclusion in a legal dispute than a white male, she wouldn’t have fit the Social Engineer-in-Chief’s agenda of 'change.'"

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/07/19/george-jonas-the-sotomayor-charade.aspx

Sonia Sotomayor's "justice" is based on race

"Sonia is, first and foremost, a Latina. She has not hesitated to demand, even in college and law school, ethnic and gender preferences for her own. Her concept of justice is race-based.

Testifying to Democrats' awareness that America does not want liberal justices for whom affirmative action is holy writ, Sotomayor is being promoted as a practitioner of judicial restraint who faithfully follows the Constitution and the law.

Yet here is a judge who ruled that New York state, by denying felons the vote, violated their civil rights.

How so? As there are disproportionately more blacks and Hispanics in prison, denying convicts the right to vote has a disparate impact on minorities.

The New York law does discriminate, but not on the basis of race, but whether or not you raped, robbed or murdered someone."

http://townhall.com/columnists/PatBuchanan/2009/07/14/how_to_handle_sonia?page=2

Backers of Sotomayor go after her male victim

"WASHINGTON — Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling.

On the eve of Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing, her advocates have been urging journalists to scrutinize what one called the "troubled and litigious work history" of firefighter Frank Ricci.

This is opposition research: a constant shadow on Capitol Hill.

"The whole business of getting Supreme Court nominees through the process has become bloodsport," said Gary Rose, a government and politics professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.

On Friday, citing in an e-mail "Frank Ricci's troubled and litigious work history," the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way drew reporters' attention to Ricci's past. Other advocates for Sotomayor have discreetly urged journalists to pursue similar story lines."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/71660.html

47 % support, 40 % oppose Sotomayor for court

"Sonia Sotomayor will begin her confirmation hearings next week with some of the highest levels of public opposition of any Supreme Court nominee in the last two decades, according to a new poll by the CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation.

In fact, only one nominee had a higher level of opposition: Harriet Miers, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005. Miers later withdrew her nomination under questions about her qualifications from both the political left and right.

Forty-seven percent of respondents to the poll say they would like to see the U.S. Senate vote to confirm Sotomayor versus forty-percent who say they would not. In the final CNN poll taken before Miers withdrew her nomination, forty-three percent of respondents said the Senate should oppose her confirmation.

No other recent nominee, not even Robert Bork, whose own nomination under President Ronald Reagan was scuttled, faced public opposition this severe. In the last poll taken during the Bork confirmation fight, thirty-eight percent wanted to see him confirmed versus thirty-five percent who did not."

http://www.nowhampshire.com/2009/07/10/sotomayor-enters-confirmation-process-with-miers-like-numbers/

Sotomayor willing to endorse discrimination

"The Senate is being asked to approve a person who was willing to endorse blatant discrimination motivated by race, albeit in the guise of remedying past discrimination even when no such discrimination is proved or even alleged.

Sotomayor will, when she is undoubtedly confirmed, replace David Souter, one of the justices who were willing to let the affirmative action mindset further erode American democracy. But the fact that her nomination will not undermine the narrow majority for reason is no cause for complacency. A doctrinaire liberal like Barack Obama can be counted on to put forward similar nominees in the next three to eight years. Anyone who cares about the future of the rule of law in this nation should not go to sleep tonight without saying a prayer for the continued good health of Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy."

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/tobin/71792

"Wise latina woman" goes zero for nine on method

"Judge Sotomayor thought it appropriate to use an unpublished summary order to dispose of the claims of the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v. DeStefano. Today the Supreme Court issued 93 pages of opinions in the case that Sotomayor acted to bury.

Further, although there is a sharp 5-4 divide among the justices, not a single justice thought that Judge Sotomayor acted correctly in granting summary judgment for the City of New Haven."

http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzNjOGZjMTY5YmFkNzAzNmI3OTU0ZDVkOTc0MWI4ZjQ=

Supreme Court strikes "wise Latina woman's" judicial vote against white New Haven firefighters

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/29/AR2009062901608_pf.html

Justice Thomas seeking test of race-based laws

"In recent years, Clarence Thomas has become a herald of coming developments from the Supreme Court, accurately forecasting what would happen years before a case comes to the Court where the justices fulfill those predictions."

(snip)

"This VRA case comes at a time when Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s statements and rulings on race have become a major issue in her Supreme Court confirmations, and where her opposition to Second Amendment rights may yet become an obstacle that derails her confirmation, if gun-rights supporters mobilize. This is ironic, since the same lawyer who argued Printz v. U.S. in 1997, Dr. Stephen Halbrook, is the same lawyer representing the NRA in NRA v. Chicago, the case being offered to the Supreme Court for next year, where Justice Thomas and possibly then-Justice Sotomayor will decide it.

Now Justice Thomas invites another case challenging the constitutionality of VRA Section Five. Such a case may come soon, giving the Supreme Court an opportunity to hold that harsh laws targeting systemic racism are a thing of the past. Such a holding would turn the page on racial politics, moving us one step closer to the day where the government stops drawing distinctions between Americans based on the color of our skin."

http://townhall.com/columnists/KenKlukowski/2009/06/29/supreme_court_signals_major_change_in_voting_rights?page=2

Henry Holzer: Look for a brazen Supreme Court-packing scheme like Roosevelt's in the 1930s

"...Obama may be tempted to channel Roosevelt. As I said in Part I of this essay, to achieve his comprehensive undemocratic plans for the United States Obama’s appointment of Sonia Sotomayor will not be enough.

For Obama to turn this country into the socialist/fascist paradise he desires, it is essential that he seize control of the Supreme Court. In Part I of this essay I wrote that “Barak H. Obama must emulate the cynical, utterly un-American but not unconstitutional tactic of the predecessor with whom he is most often compared: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Barack H. Obama must ‘pack’ the Supreme Court of the United States.”

While Roosevelt failed, Obama may not — because there are ominous parallels. Just switch the names in the next three paragraphs.

When Roosevelt took office, Wall Street had crashed, unemployment was at serious levels, Hoover’s response had been misguided and inadequate, some people were starving, public confidence was at an all-time low.

When Roosevelt took office, he was surrounded by a charismatic aura, he carried the banner of a New Deal for the American people, he was perceived as energetic and having all the answers, he enjoyed enormous public support, he had substantial Congressional majorities, he touted more government as the cure for the country’s economic ills, he was unafraid to spend incalculable sums of treasure to buy our way out of depression. FDR was seen as the savior—in stark contrast to his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, who was perceived as bumbling and incompetent.

Once Roosevelt had the government firmly in his hands, he surrounded himself with a cabal of likeminded unprincipled zealots, dozens of new laws were passed altering forever America’s financial and economic system, and federal appropriation of private property took a quantum leap.

And when a bare majority of the Supreme Court of the United States tried to stop him—successfully for a while, but ultimately unsuccessfully—Roosevelt and his henchmen took on the Court itself.

Yes, the media and chattering classes have been correct: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Barack H. Obama do have a lot in common. And if the latter takes on the Court, as the former did, the fight we must wage will have to be brutal."

http://henrymarkholzer.blogspot.com/search?q=

Don't look to Sotomayor to curtail power grabs

"Why do we have federal courts in the first place? According to James Madison, they were meant to serve as "an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive."

When it comes to checking government power, Sotomayor's record is pretty poor.
When it comes to checking government power, Sotomayor's record is pretty poor. Civil libertarians can't be happy with her pro-police orientation: The former prosecutor has backed law enforcement in more than two-thirds of criminal cases that she's heard.

Her record on property rights is no more promising: In 2006's Didden v. Village of Port Chester, she ratified an eminent domain abuse that makes the infamous Kelo case look mild.

The landowner in Didden, who wanted to build a CVS, refused to pay off a politically connected developer, so the town gave his property to the developer to build a Walgreen's. Sotomayor's panel saw no evil in this case of state-sponsored extortion."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10280

A hispanic advises justices: "Watch your hubcaps"

"Maybe Obama's selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor was a brilliant bid for him to buy time and put an illegal immigration amnesty on the backburner.

However, reviewing some Latino/Latina blog posts from cyberspace’s diverse corners, I see cracks in Obama's Hispandering strategy.

Many don't view Sotomayor as one of their own."

(snip)

"...Taco from El Paso had this charming advice for Sotomayor's Supreme Court colleagues:

'My advice to all the other justices: watch your hubcaps.'"

http://www.vdare.com/letters/tl_060609.htm

Shelby Steele: Sotomayor nomination "hackneyed"

"The Sotomayor nomination commits the cardinal sin of identity politics: It seeks to elevate people more for the political currency of their gender and ethnicity than for their individual merit. (Here, too, is the ugly faithlessness in minority merit that always underlies such maneuverings.) Mr. Obama is promising one thing and practicing another, using his interracial background to suggest an America delivered from racial corruption even as he practices a crude form of racial patronage. From America's first black president, and a man promising the "new," we get a Supreme Court nomination that is both unoriginal and hackneyed."

(snip)

"Throughout her career Judge Sotomayor has demonstrated a Hispanic chauvinism so extreme that it sometimes crosses into outright claims of racial supremacy, as in 2001 when she said in a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, "a wise Latina woman . . . would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male."

(snip)

"...in the real world of Supreme Court nominations, where there is a chance to actually bring some of that idealism down to earth, he chooses a hardened, divisive and race-focused veteran of the culture wars he claims to transcend."

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124442662679393077.html

Sowell: Does GOP have guts to take on Sotomayor?

"Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that he "loathed" many of the people in whose favor he voted on the Supreme Court. Obviously, he had feelings. But he also had the good sense and integrity to rule on the basis of the law, not his feelings.

Laws are made for the benefit of the citizens, not for the self-indulgences of judges. Making excuses for such self-indulgences and calling them "inevitable" is part of the cleverness that has eroded the rule of law and undermined respect for the law.

Something else is said to be "inevitable" by the clever people. That is the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. But it was only a year and a half ago that Hillary Clinton's winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president was considered "inevitable."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/
06/02/out_of_context_96784.html

NYT: Sotomayor for affirmative action for decades

WASHINGTON - The selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court has opened a new battle in the fight over affirmative action and other race-conscious remedies for patterns of inequality, with each side invoking the election of the first black president in support of its cause.

Judge Sotomayor, whose parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico, has championed the importance of considering race and ethnicity in admissions, hiring and even judicial selection at almost every stage of her career — as a student activist at Princeton and at Yale Law School, as a board member of left-leaning Hispanic advocacy groups and as a federal judge arguing for diversity on the bench.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31011651

Video of Constitution trashed by judge Sotomayor

Video: Jillian Bandes edits, shreds and then burns the U.S. Constitution against a backdrop of Sonia Sotomayor's judicial decisions.

http://townhall.com/video/HamNation/1450_052909Constitution