Hispanic is not a race.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

hey you can be white and African American too, but of course blacks folks don't like that though…..

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Didn't say it was

Nope, even if you're from South Africa you're just another white person.

I think it would be insofar as him being Jewish and the level of existing bias and bigotry at the time.

I think it's part of his calculus. The guy is extremely clever in politicking. It puts him in the good place for Hispanic voters that already are POed at the GOP for immigration positions and therefore have increasingly backed Obama and the Dems because of that, and puts the GOP on the spot as possibly looking bad once again to Hispanics if they blackball her.

Despite the fact that Bush picked Gonzales for AG and appointed or approved other Latino judges (including Juan Raul Sanchez for my local US District Court), the Dems filibustered Honduran-born Judge Miguel Estrada for the Circuit Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit despite a 'well-qualified' American Bar Association rating, etc, you can bet the farm that the GOP will be tarred as bigots as well as a party in the hands of extreme right wingers if they vote 'No' and especially if they try to filibuster her.

And she's also a woman, something that many women have long been complaining are not represented fairly on the SCOTUS, which is actually true given only 2 have been there (O'Connor and Ginsburg) and only 1 currently sits there (Ginsburg) and even those two Justices have been complaining about that fact.

Also, Bush 41 put Sotomayor on the bench in the first place. This also makes it hard for the GOP to claim she is now unqualified.

So, if the GOP roughs her up, votes 'No' and/or filibusters, Obama has set them up for all sorts of attacks geared towards making them pay big penalties with Latino and women voters, two huge groups of swing voters. And Obama set himself up to look good with both by picking her and so will the Dems in Congress that support her.

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I see your point, but by that standard, we probably wouldn't refer to Michael Steele an African-American (because most blacks certainly wouldn't consider him "one of their own").

And having the name Cardozo certainly does point to Hispanic ancestry, unless it can be demonstrated that the surname was taken on artificially. So he must have some hispanic blood...even if it is a small percentage.

I understand that Cardozo was Jewish, but that's a religious and cultural identity as well as an ethnic one.....which is why so many slavic, anglo, semtic, etc. peoples identify themselves so strongly as "Jewish".

I think we have to acknowledge the possibility that Cardozo was possibly as much ethnically a Hispanic-American as Obama is African-American. Without looking at his family tree, I don't see how we can conclude otherwise.



(EDIT)- I'm operating from the premise that Portugal is a Hispanic nation historically. I recognize the cultural/political tensions between the old and new Spanish world, but please....Hispania (as Portugal and Spain) predates any country in North/South America.

If Hispanic now only means descended from Aztec/Maya/Inca/Indian populations then ok, I concede.

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The world could use more Stan Ovshinsky's

anyway....just thought I would get this out here as the debate goes on....


The Judicial Oath, for all Federal Judges and Justices:

"I, _______, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

In addition, each justice or judge of the United States shall take the following oath or affirmation before performing the duties of his office. Section 8 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, as amended in 1990: "I, __________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as (name of position) under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Souter was himself a de facto Democrat on the court, so Sotomayor's appointment won't change anything.

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"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic." - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton April 28th, 2003

Carolina Politics Online

HOPE AND CHANGE

oh yea this is no game changer in that sense.

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

But, it isn't so much what the term literally says but what it means, and sometimes what a term literally says is not precisely what it means. What it means is what matters.

Michael Steele is seen as African-American because he is descended from American black slaves and that is what the term means. Even if he has white blood too, and he looks like he does, he will still be seen in that category given how the term has been applied to categorising people and how people have been categorising and identifying themselves vis-a-vis others.

It's actually Obama that really isn't of that stock although literally he is more 'African-American' in closer proximity than the Americans descended from the slave classes (his blood is otherwise Irish and English with a touch of Swiss). African-Americans are commonly seen as descendants of the American black slave class, of which Obama is not. He has one parent from Africa and was raised 'white' in a white family with white maternal ancestry. His only connection to 'African-Americans' is one of 'default categorisation' where neither he nor that community has full identification in seeing eye-to-eye.

If anything, Obama probably puts to some rest the 'one drop rule' and makes acceptance of multiracial ethnicity more accepted as a fact, which it always was but denied legitimacy due to white insistence on a person with mixed white/black ancestry being purely white or else being black.

This is also why people like Puerto Ricans are called and self-identify as Hispanics despite having mixed African heritage from the admixture of Spanish settlers and Spanish African slaves, and how African Americans also identify them as Hispanic, etc.

And as for being Hispanic, it still implies figuratively by application and understanding that a person is of Latin American origin or ancestry. Cardozo does not have that background, so he does not apply to it even literally speaking.

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That oath means nothing since the Congress does not enforce it with judges who don't abide by it.

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"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic." - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton April 28th, 2003

Carolina Politics Online

HOPE AND CHANGE

so uhm, is this a faux pas?

YouTube - Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Court is Where Policy is Made



She tried to back water and is well appears nervously flip, in other words she maybe uhm should not have said that?

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

I guess it's of minimal consequence, but I still have to say that the argument that Sotomayor is not technically the first "hispanic" SC justice does have some merit and cannot be dismissed out of hand. Especially as there seems to be some dispute as to what hispanic actually means.

I really wish the media would quit focusing so much on the ethnic side of the confirmation. I also hope that she will not focus on the ethnic element as a practicing justice.

It will be nice after we've already had our first gay justice, our first African American woman justice, our first Vulcan justice....etc.. so we can just get on with it.

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The world could use more Stan Ovshinsky's

well I have to add here that not all picks on this basis are equal, Colin Powell, Condi Rice?....there’s firsts than there’s firsts, dem. firsts are always, well better firsts.....

We have talked of this before, I despise identity politics.

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

its one of those things that folks know is true, but are not supposed to admit it.

we all know courts "simply apply the constitution." but we all also know that "simply applying the constitution" is in many cases next to impossible, so courts are frequently placed in position to dictate policy, on the basis that the constitution simply has nothing to say about a modern problem.

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