Red Meat for the GOP Base…

An astounding exchange for the year 2009. Check out the look on Rachel Maddow’s face. Is it about time for Pat Buchanan to retire from the public limelight?

U.S. Senate Could Benefit From Less Sophistry

Guest Column
by David Gespass

The headline to Jeff Sessions’ op-ed in the July 13 Birmingham News (no link available on their al.com Website) promised a fair hearing for Sonia Sotomayor. But the article itself raises questions about whether Senator Sessions was prepared to provide one.

He initially claims that, if confirmed, Judge Sotomayor “will have the power to define the meaning of our Constitution,” which is certainly an exaggeration. She would be one of nine justices and only a majority can make such a decision. This is not an unimportant distinction, since the collective decision-making of the Court can only be enhanced if the backgrounds of the justices are diverse.

More to the point, he asserts that it is wrong to expect a judge, because of her life experiences, to have empathy, claiming that showing empathy to one party demonstrates prejudice to another. Sessions is simply wrong if he is claiming that the judges he would support would not show either empathy or prejudice.

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Will we ever get past this?

For Senator Jeff Sessions and the other Republicans to bring race into this is about the most ridiculous and bizarre thing I’ve seen in the history of American political television.

I don’t know what else to say, so I think it’s Yuengling Time, as they say on Facebook…

NYT

On the eve of the big show in Washington, the first Supreme Court nomination hearings of the Obama era, it is interesting to wonder why the New York Times chose to use this photo of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions without identifying him. That’s the back of Attorney General Eric Holder’s head on the left, along with an unknown aide and Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The photo did not run on a story about the Supreme Court, where Sessions will be in the national limelight this week.

It ran on a story about the new pressure facing President Obama to reverse himself on looking forward, not back (a story we broke back in November), by ramping up investigations into the Bush-era security programs — despite the political risks. Leading Democrats on Sunday demanded investigations of how a highly classified counterterrorism program was kept secret from the Congressional leadership on the orders of Vice President Dick Cheney.

On Fox News Sunday, Feinstein called it a “big problem.” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, on “This Week” on ABC, agreed that the secrecy “could be illegal” and demanded an inquiry.

Feinstein Suggests CIA Concealment Broke Law

This is too rich. Stay tuned this week…

Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama, little known to the country, will lead the charge against Obama’s Hispanic nominee, Sonia Sotomayor of New York

Editor’s Note: I would like to thank the Huffington Post investigative fund for partial funding for this story.

by Glynn Wilson

When the Senate Judiciary Committee convenes Monday, July 13 to begin advise and consent hearings on President Barack Obama’s first nominee to the United States Supreme Court, potentially the first Hispanic on the court, the American people will learn all there is to know about Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge from New York who will most likely be confirmed to replace Justice David Souter. But they may not know a thing about the senator who is expected to enter the national limelight for the first time as the lead inquisitor in her confirmation, who faces grave political risks for his party if things are mishandled and go wrong.

Senator Jeff Sessions

Jefferson “Jeff” Beauregard Sessions III, the ranking minority Republican on the committee elevated by his colleagues to take the lead in questioning Ms. Sotomayor, is an Old South senator with an Old South name from the Deep South state of Alabama. He is an arch-conservative with a voting record ranked in the top five most conservative in the Senate by the National Review. He has voted consistently with a majority of his Republican colleagues 93 percent of the time, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Sessions has already indicated he will want to question Ms. Sotomayor on whether her empathy as a Hispanic from her time on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund will translate into favoritism or “activism” for certain groups. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich started that fight when he was quoted from a Twitter Tweet calling her a racist. Sessions will have to tread a fine line on the race issue since he was turned down for a federal judgeship in 1986 for making racist remarks himself — by the very Senate committee he now leads on the minority side. He called the NAACP and the ACLU “un-American,” and he said the Ku Klux Klan boys were all right with him — until he found out they were “pot smokers,” according to testimony from his failed confirmation-hearing transcript.

That story will be told time and again over the next few days by the nation’s top newspapers, including the New York Times, on cable news and blogs all over the country. But it may not be the most important thing people need to know about the senator who is sitting in judgment on who will be allowed to serve on the nation’s highest court to shape the future of American law for a generation.

What they need to know is that Mr. Sessions has been on a crusade on the side of corporate America and against the rights of workers and juries for many years.

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Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court is so qualified with so much experience that the Republicans want to delay her confirmation. What?

They need more time to dig for dirt and raise money by drumming up a fake controversy. That’s what’s going on people. Don’t be fooled.

Funny, our very own Jeffry Sessions, who is slated to be the lead attack dog on Sonia Sotomayor during the confirmation hearings, has been strangely quiet of late. Do you think he knows we are investigating him? Ask his good friend Terry Everett, who decided not to run for another term in Congress when we wrote about his ethics here.

Nah, the Web Press has no influence around here…

Of course the Republicans want to stall…
GOP Rips Dems for Supreme Court Rush

But the Democrats are pushing forward…
Sotomayor’s Confirmation Hearings to Begin July 13

Alabama Democratic Party Chair Joe Turnham praised President Obama’s selection of Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee to the United States Supreme Court in a press release today.

When confirmed, Sotomayor will be the third woman to serve and the Court’s first Hispanic justice.

“President Obama pledged to select a nominee with a rigorous intellect, a mastery of the law and a commitment to impartial justice. He promised to select someone who has a broader perspective on how the world works and has a commonsense understanding of how the law affects the daily realities of everyday life,” Turnham said.

“On Tuesday President Obama delivered on his promise with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor’s stirring life story and outstanding career — at nearly every level of our judicial system — makes her uniquely qualified to serve as America’s next Supreme Court Justice. Throughout her career on the bench, she has been lauded as a fearless jurist, with a sharp and independent mind and a deep commitment to the rule of law and our constitutional traditions,” he said. “I commend President Obama on his outstanding choice and congratulate Judge Sotomayor on her nomination.”

Bradley Byrne Opposes Alabama Families on Kitchen Table Issues

Bradley Byrne entered the race for Alabama governor this week, bringing with him a track record of opposing popular measures to improve the lives of middle class families, the Alabama Democratic Party said in a press release.

Known as a fierce partisan in Montgomery, Byrne opposed accepting $66 million in federal unemployment for out of work Alabamians available through the stimulus, helping send those tax dollars to other states.

In the State Senate, Bradley Byrne proposed raiding millions of dollars from the Education Trust Fund to pay for other priorities.

“Bradley Byrne is out of touch with Alabama families on kitchen table issues like standing up for unemployed workers and investing in our education system,” said Alabama Democratic Party Executive Director Jim Spearman. “He has consistently sided against ordinary Alabamians struggling to make ends meet.”

Judge Sotomayor has made the American dream her own, according to President Obama, who nominated her for the United States Supreme court today.

Born and raised in a South Bronx public housing project to Puerto Rican parents, Sotomayor has distinguished herself in academia, as a big-city prosecutor, and as a leading figure on the federal bench. If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor would start with more federal judicial experience than any new Justice in 100 years.

First appointed to the Federal District Court by President George H.W. Bush, and then elevated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton, Judge Sotomayor is widely admired as one the finest legal minds in America today. As a trail-blazing Latina whose career has spanned nearly every aspect of the law, Judge Sotomayor will show fidelity to the Constitution while bringing to the Court a common sense understanding of how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives.

We can’t wait to see how Alabama’s junior Senator, Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions, will approach his staring role in opposing President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court.

President Barack Obama tapped federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court on Tuesday, making her the first Hispanic in history picked to wear the robes of a justice.

If confirmed by the Senate, Sotomayor, 54, would succeed retiring Justice David Souter.

Administration officials say Sotomayor, with 17 years on the bench, would bring more judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice confirmed in the past 70 years.

WP: Obama Chooses Sotomayor for Supreme Court

NYT: Obama Selects Sotomayor for Court

Breaking News: Obama Picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court