The following press release comes directly off the President's web site, so make sure you read it carefully, believing only that which the spirit and your own intellect tells you is true. Warning: Some of the following editorializing may be totally misleading and false, except for the fact that Sonia Sotomayor has been nominated. I shall editorialize intermittently in this release. Don White
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
The President’s Nominee: Judge Sonia Sotomayor
There is no question that nominating a Supreme Court Justice is amongst a president’s most important responsibilities. In replacing Justice Souter, the President has vowed to seek someone with a sharp and independent mind, and a record of excellence and integrity. As a former constitutional law professor, he believes it paramount to select someone who rejects ideology and shares his deep respect for the Constitutional values on which this nation was founded.
Absolutely no one rejects ideology, especially not judges. It will be seen how much she respects the Constitution. Not many in Obama's administration do.
And as the President has made clear, upholding those constitutional values requires more than just the intellectual ability to apply a legal rule to a set of facts. It requires a common sense understanding of how laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives.
This is where Obama and his gang get into trouble with the Constitution, that is when they allegedly use "common sense understanding of how laws affect..."As the President noted in
his remarks this morning, Judge Sonia Sotomayor fits that bill – he began recounting her spectacular credentials, before describing the life story that made her who she is:
But as impressive and meaningful as Judge Sotomayor's sterling credentials in the law is her own extraordinary journey. Born in the South Bronx, she was raised in a housing project not far from Yankee Stadium, making her a lifelong Yankee's fan. I hope this will not disqualify her -- (laughter) -- in the eyes of the New Englanders in the Senate. (Laughter.)
So far, the part about her Yankee loyalty is the only thing I like. DW
Sonia's parents came to New York from Puerto Rico during the second world war, her mother as part of the Women's Army Corps. And, in fact, her mother is here today and I'd like us all to acknowledge Sonia's mom. (Applause.) Sonia's mom has been a little choked up. (Laughter.) But she, Sonia's mother, began a family tradition of giving back to this country. Sonia's father was a factory worker with a 3rd-grade education who didn't speak English. But like Sonia's mother, he had a willingness to work hard, a strong sense of family, and a belief in the American Dream.
When Sonia was nine, her father passed away. And her mother worked six days a week as a nurse to provide for Sonia and her brother -- who is also here today, is a doctor and a terrific success in his own right. But Sonia's mom bought the only set of encyclopedias in the neighborhood, sent her children to a Catholic school called Cardinal Spellman out of the belief that with a good education here in America all things are possible.
With the support of family, friends, and teachers, Sonia earned scholarships to Princeton, where she graduated at the top of her class, and Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, stepping onto the path that led her here today.
Along the way she's faced down barriers, overcome the odds, lived out the American Dream that brought her parents here so long ago. And even as she has accomplished so much in her life, she has never forgotten where she began, never lost touch with the community that supported her.
What Sonia will bring to the Court, then, is not only the knowledge and experience acquired over a course of a brilliant legal career, but the wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life's journey.
It's my understanding that Judge Sotomayor's interest in the law was sparked as a young girl by reading the Nancy Drew series -- (laughter) -- and that when she was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of eight, she was informed that people with diabetes can't grow up to be police officers or private investigators like Nancy Drew. And that's when she was told she'd have to scale back her dreams.
She probably thought she would never be a member of the Supreme Court, never run for president, or never make a difference. How wrong she was, because she will be an obvious shoo-in and a favorite among the Democratic Congress which supports Obama.
The Law School Admission Council has a
video discussing her story as part of their "Believe and Achieve: Latinos and the Law" program that is also well worth watching. Finally, the White House also sent out the following
background, giving a thorough look at Judge Sotomayor’s life and career:
Judge Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor has served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since October 1998. She has been hailed as "one of the ablest federal judges currently sitting" for her thoughtful opinions,i and as "a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity"ii for her ascent to the federal bench from an upbringing in a South Bronx housing project.
All judges are able in someone's mind, but it takes a pejorative or biased view of someone before they say she is one of the "ablest" judges. I'd like to see what she adjudicated into law. How liberal were her views, how conservative?
Her American story and three decade career in nearly every aspect of the law provide Judge Sotomayor with unique qualifications to be the next Supreme Court Justice. She is a distinguished graduate of two of America's leading universities. She has been a big-city prosecutor and a corporate litigator. Before she was promoted to the Second Circuit by President Clinton, she was appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H.W. Bush. She replaces Justice Souter as the only Justice with experience as a trial judge.
We're all unique in some ways. To be appointed by a Republican president to District Court may be good, but Bush wasn't always a conservative Constitutional president. In some ways he was liberal and got things wrong, as in his selection of Judge David Souter.
Judge Sotomayor served 11 years on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, one of the most demanding circuits in the country, and has handed down decisions on a range of complex legal and constitutional issues. If confirmed, Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years, and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 70 years. (So what? Just because one makes a living at being a judge doesn't mean she will rule fairly and according to the Constitution.)
Judge Richard C. Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee to the Second Circuit, said "Sonia is an outstanding colleague with a keen legal mind. She brings a wealth of knowledge and hard work to all her endeavors on our court. It is both a pleasure and an honor to serve with her."
In addition to her distinguished judicial service, Judge Sotomayor is a Lecturer at Columbia University Law School and was also an adjunct professor at New York University Law School until 2007.
An American Story
Judge Sonia Sotomayor has lived the American dream. Born to a Puerto Rican family, she grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx. Her parents moved to New York during World War II – her mother served in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps during the war. Her father, a factory worker with a third-grade education, died when Sotomayor was nine years old. Her mother, a nurse, then raised Sotomayor and her younger brother, Juan, now a physician in Syracuse. After her father’s death, Sotomayor turned to books for solace, and it was her new found love of Nancy Drew that inspired a love of reading and learning, a path that ultimately led her to the law.
Most importantly, at an early age, her mother instilled in Sotomayor and her brother a belief in the power of education. Driven by an indefatigable work ethic, and rising to the challenge of managing a diagnosis of juvenile diabetes, Sotomayor excelled in school. Sotomayor graduated as valedictorian of her class at Blessed Sacrament and at Cardinal Spellman High School in New York. She first heard about the Ivy League from her high school debate coach, Ken Moy, who attended Princeton University, and she soon followed in his footsteps after winning a scholarship.
At Princeton, she continued to excel, graduating summa cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa. She was a co-recipient of the M. Taylor Pyne Prize, the highest honor Princeton awards to an undergraduate. At Yale Law School, Judge Sotomayor served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and as managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. One of Sotomayor’s former Yale Law School classmates, Robert Klonoff (now Dean of Lewis & Clark Law School), remembers her intellectual toughness from law school: "She would stand up for herself and not be intimidated by anyone." [Washington Post, 5/7/09]
A Champion of the Law
Over a distinguished career that spans three decades, Judge Sotomayor has worked at almost every level of our judicial system – yielding a depth of experience and a breadth of perspectives that will be invaluable – and is currently not represented -- on our highest court. New York City District Attorney Morgenthau recently praised Sotomayor as an "able champion of the law" who would be "highly qualified for any position in which wisdom, intelligence, collegiality and good character could be assets." [Wall Street Journal, 5/9/09]
Another Obama jab at the 5-4 conservative court which Obama wants to make liberal, and with Sotomayor he will have his chance. We still don't know what she stands for except so called "fairness."
A Fearless and Effective Prosecutor
Fresh out of Yale Law School, Judge Sotomayor became an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan in 1979, where she tried dozens of criminal cases over five years. Spending nearly every day in the court room, her prosecutorial work typically involved "street crimes," such as murders and robberies, as well as child abuse, police misconduct, and fraud cases. There's plenty of lawlessness in the White House and the Democratic Party for her to cast her eyes on.
Robert Morgenthau, the person who hired Judge Sotomayor, has described her as a "fearless and effective prosecutor." [Wall Street Journal, 5/9/09] She was cocounsel in the "Tarzan Murderer" case, which convicted a murderer to 67 and ½ years to life in prison, and was sole counsel in a multiple-defendant case involving a Manhattan housing project shooting between rival family groups.
A Corporate Litigator
She entered private practice in 1984, becoming a partner in 1988 at the firm Pavia and Harcourt. She was a general civil litigator involved in all facets of commercial work including, real estate, employment, banking, contracts, and agency law. In addition, her practice had a significant concentration in intellectual property law, including trademark, copyright and unfair competition issues. Her typical clients were significant corporations doing international business. The managing partner who hired her, George Pavia, remembers being instantly impressed with the young Sonia Sotomayor when he hired her in 1984, noting that "she was just ideal for us in terms of her background and training." [Washington Post, May 7, 2009]
A Sharp and Fearless Trial Judge
Her judicial service began in October 1992 with her appointment to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H.W. Bush. Still in her 30s, she was the youngest member of the court. From 1992 to 1998, she presided over roughly 450 cases. As a trial judge, she earned a reputation as a sharp and fearless jurist who does not let powerful interests bully her into departing from the rule of law. In 1995, for example, she issued an injunction against Major League Baseball owners, effectively ending a baseball strike that had become the longest work stoppage in professional sports history and had caused the cancellation of the World Series the previous fall. She was widely lauded for saving baseball. Good for her. Claude Lewis of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that by saving the season, Judge Sotomayor joined "the ranks of Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson and Ted Williams." Oh, what judicial cow manure that is.
A Tough, Fair and Thoughtful Jurist
President Clinton appointed Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1998. She is the first Latina to serve on that court, and has participated in over 3000 panel decisions,
authoring roughly 400 published opinions. Sitting on the Second Circuit, Judge Sotomayor has tackled a range of questions: from difficult issues of constitutional law, to complex procedural matters, to lawsuits involving complicated business organizations. In this context, Sotomayor is widely admired as a judge with a sophisticated grasp of legal doctrine. "’She appreciates the complexity of issues,’ said Stephen L. Carter, a Yale professor who teaches some of her opinions in his classes. Confronted with a tough case, Carter said, ‘she doesn’t leap at its throat but reasons to get to the bottom of issues.’" For example, in
United States v. Quattrone, Judge Sotomayor concluded that the trial judge had erred by forbidding the release of jurors’ names to the press, concluding after carefully weighing the competing concerns that the
trial judge’s concerns for a speedy and orderly trial must give way to the constitutional freedoms of speech and the press.
Who was Quattrone that he got her to speed up a trial at the expense of these jurors? It may not be that way, but that's what it looks like to me. Oh, Oh, here we go. Putting the Constitutional freedoms of privacy and security of jurors second is not good.
But in this case it may have been good. See the case at
http://altlaw.org/v1/cases1134556
Sotomayor also has keen awareness of the law’s impact on everyday life. Active in oral arguments, she works tirelessly to probe both the factual details and the legal doctrines in the cases before her and to arrive at decisions that are faithful to both. She understands that upholding the rule of law means going beyond legal theory to ensure consistent, fair, common-sense application of the law to real-world facts. For example, In United States v. Reimer, Judge Sotomayor wrote an opinion revoking the US citizenship for a man charged with working for the Nazis in World War II Poland, guarding concentration camps and helping empty the Jewish ghettos. That's a no-brainer for any judge. And in Lin v. Gonzales and a series of similar cases, she ordered renewed consideration of the asylum claims of Chinese women who experienced or were threatened with forced birth control, evincing in her opinions a keen awareness of those women’s plights.
A women's rights advocate could easily become a pro-choice and a gay and lesbian rights advocate?
Judge Sotomayor’s appreciation of the real-world implications of judicial rulings is paralleled by her sensible practicality in evaluating the actions of law enforcement officers. For example, in United States v. Falso, the defendant was convicted of possessing child pornography after FBI agents searched his home with a warrant.
The warrant should not have been issued, but the agents did not know that, and Judge Sotomayor wrote for the court that the officers’ good faith justified using the evidence they found. Similarly in
United States v. Santa, Judge Sotomayor ruled that when
police search a suspect based on a mistaken belief that there is a valid arrest warrant out on him, evidence found during the search should not be suppressed.
I'm sorry, but even if I hadn't gone to law school, I've watched enough "Law and Order" serials on TV to know that this is the law of the land. Why does Obama's people even bring this one up? Who are they trying to impress, they have enough votes in the Senate to approve this woman. And don't think for a minute that her being a woman wasn't political. Obama is smart. He knows both Republican Senators Olympia J. Snow and Susan Collins are liberal Republican women who will probably go for this Supreme Court nominee simply because she is a woman.Ten years later, in
Herring v. United States, the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion. In her 1997 confirmation hearing, Sotomayor spoke of her judicial philosophy, saying"
I don’t believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance.
Well, we shall see, won't we? "Bending" the Constitution means one thing to one person and entirely something else to another person. She bent the Constitution over privacy rights of jurors, reading names for the press to print. I read that finding and it is my opinion that because of the unique circumstances, she probably ruled correctly. Again, see the Alt Law case highlighted above.
It says what it says. We should do honor to it." Her record on the Second Circuit holds true to that statement. For example, in
Hankins v. Lyght, she argued in dissent that the federal government risks "an unconstitutional trespass" if it attempts to dictate to religious organizations who they can or cannot hire or dismiss as spiritual leaders. Since joining the Second Circuit, Sotomayor has honored the Constitution, the rule of law, and justice, often forging consensus and winning conservative colleagues to her point of view.
A Commitment to Community
Judge Sotomayor is deeply committed to her family, to her co-workers, and to her community. Judge Sotomayor is a doting aunt to her brother Juan’s three children and an attentive godmother to five more. She still speaks to her mother, who now lives in Florida, every day. At the courthouse, Judge Sotomayor helped found the collegiality committee to foster stronger personal relationships among members of the court. Seizing an opportunity to lead others on the path to success, she recruited judges to join her in inviting young women to the courthouse on Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and mentors young students from troubled neighborhoods Her favorite project, however, is the Development School for Youth program, which sponsors workshops for inner city high school students. Every semester, approximately 70 students attend 16 weekly workshops that are designed to teach them how to function in a work setting. The workshop leaders include investment bankers, corporate executives and Judge Sotomayor, who conducts a workshop on the law for 25 to 35 students. She uses as her vehicle the trial of Goldilocks and recruits six lawyers to help her. The students play various roles, including the parts of the prosecutor, the defense attorney, Goldilocks and the jurors, and in the process they get to experience openings, closings, direct and cross-examinations. In addition to the workshop experience, each student is offered a summer job by one of the corporate sponsors. The experience is rewarding for the lawyers and exciting for the students, commented Judge Sotomayor, as "it opens up possibilities that the students never dreamed of before." [Federal Bar Council News, Sept./Oct./Nov. 2005, p.20] This is one of many ways that Judge Sotomayor gives back to her community and inspires young people to achieve their dreams.
She has served as a member of the Second Circuit Task Force on Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts and was formerly on the Boards of Directors of the New York Mortgage Agency, the New York City Campaign Finance Board, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
BOTTOM LINE: She's a very liberal political activist judge who doesn't know that it's the legislative branch which makes the law, and the judges which interpret the law. She is far to the left of Judge David Souter. There were several of Obama's suggested nominees that were far more moderate (and somewhat conservative) than this Puerto Ricon-born activist judge. She's got several strikes against her: It's an activist woman who believes men can't see her point of view; she is hispanic; her parents were poor, and she has it out for anyone who was not poor, despite the fact she has represented Corporations. She definitely has her own idea of what the Constitution is. Because of this, she has been reversed as a liberal Court appeal judge five of six times her rulings have come before the Supreme Court. She seems to meet Obama's litmus test of making everyone in America economically equal.
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i American Philosophical Society, Biographical Essays of Moderators, Speakers, Inductees and Award Recipients, Annual General Meeting, April 2003, at 36.
ii Honorary Degree Citation, Pace University School of Law, 2003 Commencement.
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Now it’s clear that Washington is nearing the end of its rope. 
In the last century, the impassioned words and actions of patriots like Winston Churchill – along with America’s heroic help and sacrifice – saved Europe. The eloquence and actions of “I’ve been to the mountaintop” Martin Luther King Jr. brought America to an unprecedented level of social justice. 
I liked Cheney's speech and so did most Americans. It heralded an aggressive Republican Party unafraid to be on the attack against the do-nothing-big spending Democrats. Cheney's speech was chockfull of cogent arguments -- but remember history will be the final arbiter.
This argument about Gitmo and interrogation should be framed in a much bigger perspective -- it's really about which tact should be taken when dealing with terrorists and rogue nations like North Korea and Iran. The tough tact is the correct one. The current bomb crisis in North Korea was caused by Obama's weak stance thus far. They're testing him. Will he stand up to the test? I don't know. It will be either handled deftly and correctly, making the North back down and destroy their bomb-making facilities with UN witnesses -- and I think we're off to a good start with 90 nations cooperating in some kind of economic embargo -- or more of the same old lies that Clinton, Bush and now Obama seemed content to allow North Korea to get away with. Except in this case Obama is faced with a real crisis and must do something courageous for a change, instead of merely blaming Bush.
Now's the time for you Obama and Hillary Clinton lovers, Ruth, to spout off if the president has anything to stand proud for and create an article that means something, an article that makes the little guy proud of his government instead of always hearing about the outrageous amounts of money spent on car makers and banks and that unnecessary $80 billion to build a new Gitmo when he can merely change the name or move them to U.S. soil,which he will do, damaging the good will of states he took in the election.
Cheney's hard line is the right tact. Now's the time for Obama's hard line. Obama's ho-hum attack -- let the UN do it -- is no attack and will get a lot of innocent people killed. The real face-off isn't Obama-Cheney, the vice president won that one. Now it's Obama-Kim Jung-Il and my guess is the Korean will win that one judging by the valor and patriotism we've seen in the past from this president who loves to apologize for America to bolster his own popularity when on foreign soil with international gangsters like Hugo Chavez and Castro.