Posted on 07/13/2009 4:39:03 AM PDT by STARWISE
The leading Judiciary Committee Republican is charging that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is "out of the mainstream" of legal thinking and has a very activist judicial profile.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama made the assertion just hours before Sotomayor, who would be the third woman to join the court, was to face her initial confirmation hearing.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court - Sonia Sotomayor - Questionnaire
http://judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/SupremeCourt/Sotomayor/SoniaSotomayor-Questionnaire.cfm
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This is going to be very interesting ... there’ll probably be a lot of bloviating, as each Judiciary Committee member will be getting 30 minute sessions.
I can’t remember what the old timeframe was, but it sure wasn’t 30 minutes. I’m wondering who changed it, why, what the motive was, and what will be the result as the senators fill that time with their questions and her responses.
____________________________________________________
*snip*
THE LEAD PLAYERS
Chairman Leahy, D-Vt.
If he looks familiar, it could be because he’s been in the Senate for more than three decades and participated in hearings of every Supreme Court nominee since now-retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Or it could be the Batman movies. With white hair and bifocals, the man with the gavel has had cameos in all of them, and a speaking part in “The Dark Knight.”
Leahy, 69, will be in charge of keeping senators to their
allotted 30 minutes for questions,
tamping down the inevitable showboating and issuing stern warnings to any protesters who get out of hand.
It’s good to be chairman, by the way: He can allot himself all the time he wants to rebut points Republicans try to make or to ask clarifying questions of the nominee. Leahy was a state prosecutor for eight years before coming to the Senate. The grandfather of five is an avid photographer seen at previous hearings snapping pictures of news photographers as they snap photos of him.
___
Ranking Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
Taking his first turn as the lead Republican at a Supreme Court hearing, the 62-year-old Sessions will sit next to Leahy and, in broad terms, try to reassure the vanquished GOP base that their interests are being represented in this most visible forum.
Sessions wants to know whether Sotomayor allows personal views, not just the law, to influence her rulings. He has raised doubts about her support for the constitutional right to keep and bear arms and her association with a Puerto Rican civil rights group before she became a federal judge 17 years ago.
But conservative critics of Sotomayor have been unable to get the Senate’s 40 Republicans to stand together against her, and Sessions has said he doesn’t “sense a filibuster in the works” to block her confirmation.
Personally and politically, he’s got big shoes to fill and a delicate line to walk in this role. Sessions is succeeding the sharp-tongued Specter, chairman at the previous two Supreme Court hearings.
Sessions, in his third term, has plenty of experience grilling witnesses; he’s a former federal prosecutor. But he has stumbled over issues of race. Comments he allegedly made sank his own nomination by President Ronald Reagan to be a federal judge.
Rest here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090713/ap_on_go_co/us_sotomayor_senate_roles
As we see in the pic above even Carter covered up his shirt sleeves with the famous sweater he wore when he ordered the room temperature set at freezing to "save energy".
Then we see the Cheshire Rat laughing at the people of America attired in full polo shirt disrespect.
I suspect his golf bag and cleats are to be found every day atop a $93,000 antique Duncan Phyfe table next to the entry door.
Leni
All the key board pounding, wailing, and gnashing of teeth is not going to change the outcome nor serve as a satisfactory catharsis.
I, for one, am going to engage in productive endeavor and ignore the hearings.
Does it strike you as nearly past belief that one of the senators questioning her today will be Stuart Smiley?
Sidebar
~~~~~~~~~~~
As a district judge, she advanced First Amendment religious claims by tossing out a state prison rule banning members of a religious sect from wearing colored beads to ward off evil spirits, and by rejecting a suburban law preventing the display of a 9-foot-high menorah in a park.
In 1995, she released the suicide note of former White House aide Vincent Foster, acting on litigation brought by the Wall Street Journal under the Freedom of Information Act.
Sotomayor, who has a brother who became a doctor, presided over a civil trial in 1996 in which the family of a lawyer who died from AIDS sued the makers of the movie “Philadelphia,” contending that Hollywood stole their story.
The case was settled, but not before the movie with its dramatic courtroom showdowns was played for the jury in its entirety, prompting Sotomayor to caution: “I don’t expect melodrama here. I don’t want anybody aspiring to what they see on the screen.”
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/politics&id=6831739
Totally ... and I found this in my surfing
###
Back in his “Saturday Night Live” days in 1991, during the X-rated Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Al Franken played a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee less interested in the nominee’s qualifications for the U.S. Supreme Court than in his own chances with a cute government receptionist.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1184468
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Beyond surreal and sickening.
And if I hear one more comment from Schumer or Feinstein about how incredible, how enthralling and amazing her story is, when NOTHING compares to the outhouse existence of Clarence Thomas .. I will SCREAM!
Well, Karl Rove just told Megyn that the Repubs have to vote for her or they will be targeted by the Dems in the future as voting against a Hispanic. But it’s okay that Barry wanted to filibuster Alito.
Love it—Bret Baier keeps cutting off Chuck Schumer...not an easy task.
Today will be interesting, but tomorrow will be the key day. Today it will just be a bunch of bloviating senators and opening statements. Tomorrow she has to answer questions.
This woman baffles me entirely.
Bill Sammon just asked—will Repubs roll over or show some backbone on the issues? Also, on Al Franken questioning her—Thomas Jefferson will be rolling over in his grave.
Gotcha .. just heard that. Thanks.
Her statement is today at the end.
There’s sadly quite a bit of truth to that.
The pubbies have to tread very gingerly,
while still honing in on the important
issues.
Can’t wait to watch Franken make a fool of himself as he struggles to be taken seriously...lol. What a joke!
How did he get a committee post as a freshman?
“There’s sadly quite a bit of truth to that. The pubbies have to tread very gingerly, while still honing in on the important issues.”
That strategy has worked for us pretty well so far...this bigot should be Borked and Borked hard...
Can’t wait until Rush gets back at the EIB mic today! Leahy always reminds me of the grinch...lol
The suit she’s wearing isn’t becoming (I’m feeling petty this morning!).
Did it HAVE to be Leahy? I think I might rather listen to Bawney Fwank...
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