Supreme Court Justice Souter retiring?

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[Forty Watt]

Interesting questions, pacos-gal.

WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN?
By Jonathan Haidt is a good read if one wants to grapple with the complexities of moral and political decision making.  It's very long, so you really need to be in the mood and have a bit of time!  Also, while Haidt is a liberal, it doesn't let liberals off the hook.

If Democrats want to understand what makes people vote Republican, they must first understand the full spectrum of American moral concerns. They should then consider whether they can use more of that spectrum themselves. The Democrats would lose their souls if they ever abandoned their commitment to social justice, but social justice is about getting fair relationships among the parts of the nation. This often divisive struggle among the parts must be balanced by a clear and oft-repeated commitment to guarding the precious coherence of the whole. America lacks the long history, small size, ethnic homogeneity, and soccer mania that holds many other nations together, so our flag, our founding fathers, our military, and our common language take on a moral importance that many liberals find hard to fathom.

[Forty Watt]

Yesterday Ted Olson gave me a surprise.  Today it is Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, considered to be a member of the religious right.  He is supporting Sotomayor.  I didn't see that coming.

"I like the fact that she is not brandishing her religion. I do not want Catholic judges to rule as Catholics but as judges. I am all for Catholic legislators having a Catholic-informed opinion, but a judge has a different charge. Unless something pops that we don't know about, I am not going to oppose her. Indeed, the experiences I had working with the Puerto Rican community lead me to quietly root for her."

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2009/05/bill.html

Some pockets of sanity in the Right-Wing's Cloak of Darkness?

[Lucy]

TANCREDO: If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino — it’s a counterpart — a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses.

  That sentence makes no sense.  Isn't the hood and nooses largely what makes the KKK the KKK.  Otherwise it's just another club with an agenda (generally a legal & ethical agenda). 

[Forty Watt]

Seems like Sessions may be part of a push-back against Tancredo and other wing nuts.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, had effusive words of praise for Sotomayor.

"Let me just say that this lady has got a good record, as Pat said, for a judge," said Sessions, while sitting next to Leahy. "Prosecutor, lawyer, judge, district trial judge, federal judge--she's smart, she's capable."

Sessions didn't end there, adding, "She's got the kind of background you would look for, almost an ideal mix of private practice, trial prosecution and circuit judge. That's strong in her favor."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/31/top-republican-has-effusi_n_209474.html

Mitch McConnell, on the other hand, not so much. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/31/lindsey-graham-breaks-wit_n_209475.html

[0whole1]

TANCREDO: If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino — it’s a counterpart — a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses.

  That sentence makes no sense.  Isn't the hood and nooses largely what makes the KKK the KKK.  Otherwise it's just another club with an agenda (generally a legal & ethical agenda). 

That, and organization offices that have magical-sounding names like "dragon" and "wizard".  like, say, Harry Potter fan clubs, and perhaps the Mouseketeers.

[pj]

Can Sessions make up his mind???

She's good, she's bad, she's something in between?

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Judiciary panel, said this week that the Puerto Rican defense group has taken "extreme positions," and his office branded the organization "activist" in a background memo it released on Friday.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/03/sessions-claims-sotomayor_n_225432.html

[clydedog]

TANCREDO: If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino — it’s a counterpart — a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses.

  That sentence makes no sense.  Isn't the hood and nooses largely what makes the KKK the KKK.  Otherwise it's just another club with an agenda (generally a legal & ethical agenda). 

They are more like a latino NAACP. But if you are just trying to hype an ignorant view, you compare them to Nazis, KKK, communists, terrorists, Democrats, or some other scary group. Remember the right wing approach, you portray them as part of a group that is not "us", the scarier the better, then you distort their views and record. People don't mind hating or fearing someone they think is different and dangerous. It was the whole repub theme of the 08 election. Because of that, more and more people are seeing it for what it is. Lies.

[Sirenoftitan]

Television coverage of Supreme Court confirmation hearings can make difficult viewing, especially from across the Atlantic.  And with the latest indications of a relatively clear path to Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation - polls giving her a comfortable approval rating in the polls and a top rating from the influential American Bar Association already under her belt - suspense might be in short supply this afternoon.

The Sotomayor drinking game by Daniel Finkelstein, The Times

Hic !

[daMamma]

The big fear from the right (at least on opinion pieces I've been reading) is that Sotomayor will gear all of her judgments towards minorities regardless of the legalities of the cases that come before her on the Supreme Court.  There is a lot of scaremongering going on about her that just have no basis in reality.

[ds55]

pro⋅jec⋅tion
Pronunciation [pruh-jek-shuhn]
–noun
...
11.    Psychology.
a.    the tendency to ascribe to another person feelings, thoughts, or attitudes present in oneself, or to regard external reality as embodying such feelings, thoughts, etc., in some way.
b.    Psychoanalysis. such an ascription relieving the ego of a sense of guilt or other intolerable feeling.

[futurexpat?]

The Republicans are projection personified.