I'd agree on that. As long expressed, judges are repeatedly attacked by those demanding that they be kangaroos to their personal opinions, which is exactly what they are not supposed to be. They can have their own interpretative views within what the laws allow, and there really lies the crux IMO.

As I've always seen it, qualifications should go towards whether the judge is legally qualified from resume, experience, temperment, etc. As for selection, they do often get picked by those who believe they will be agreeable in the grey areas the law allows, but that is part of the selection process. But as for being qualified, Roberts or Alito and her are easily qualified IMO given their resumes, personalities, etc. Objections, if any, are mostly political to them in how they interpret laws where the laws allow it. Such considerations, however, do not render the judge 'activist' or breaching their duties just because they do not make all the decisions the attackers wish.

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Judge Sotomayor seems to think that her experience as a Latina woman gives her a superior perspective in judicial matters than that of a white male. At least that is what she said in her 2002 remark, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

I am a white male. I was born into abject poverty in Appalachia in the 1950's. My family lived in two rooms with no running water, and outhouse, bare wood floors, heated with coal picked up from along side the railroad tracks. In the 1960's I watched TV as people like me and my family were made fun of by Hollywood in shows like "The Beverly Hillbillies". We struggled to do better, never collecting a dime of welfare although my parents were grateful for the surplus commodities that were distributed in the community.

Has Judge Sotomayor experienced any of these things? Can she relate to the notion that a white male such as myself might have risen out of poverty to become well educated and a financially successful professonal? Would she ever bring herself to look beyond my whiteness and my maleness? I find myself wondering these things about her. Female-ness and Hispanic-ness tell me nothing in particular about this woman because I have an adopted daughter of Mexican origin genetically, and she shares nothing in the way of common experience with this judge just because of her gender or skin color.

This woman seems trapped in a time warp in which minority people cannot seem to see outside of the minority discrimination box they have painted themselves into from the comments she has made. It is troubling.

identity politics, a victimless crime Yes, it is troubling.

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

Obama nominates "first Hispanic" Supreme Court Justice. Blind, wheelchair-bound, transexual Scandinavian immigrants still being farked over.

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January 21, 2013: The End of an ERROR.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
---Benjamin Franklin

These are two of the funniest posts I've ever read.

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"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.”
- George Will

watching media clowns attempt to understand the judicial process is hilarious.

can a justice consider the ramifications of a decision on the people (one hell of a notable cause) and still be 'constitutional' as well? according to the zombie brit hume on fox, no, you can't.

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It's an interesting irony, since the life story of Clarence Thomas was a big selling point for him as a nominee. He was also a concrete living example of the American Dream, and no one disputed that. It was his conservative values, lack of experience on the bench and then finally the sex scandal that got him into trouble.

But since he was on the conservative side, white male conservatives didn't really see him as any kind of threat. So it's kind of interesting to see how the far right is reacting to Sotomayor so far, with the overtly sexist notion that somehow her life experience will cause her to put emotions before jurisprudence.

It's too bad that the GOP is overrun with folks who don't like to read, since if they were to really investigate her rulings, she appears IMHO to be much closer to Justice Kennedy than to Justice Souter.

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“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."-Sarah Palin, not having a clue once again about what she is talking about.

I guess you do don't understand that Jewish people have been mixed up all over Europe for many centuries- yet still maintained their separate cultural identity?

I see that some immature types are allowed to continually bait others while parroting the conservative talking points... sweet.

Ashkenazi constitute most of the surviving Jews of Europe. They are descended from Jews who lived in medieval Germany and who gradually migrated toward the East in fairly large numbers. Through centuries of residence and intermarriage in Europe, they ceased to be ethnically identifiable with the Jews who inhabited ancient Israel and who were "dispersed" by the Romans. And while they possess "cultural" characteristics which distinguish them from their immediate neighbors, it is not accurate to say that their culture has much in common with the Jews of the Near East. While they "maintain their separate cultural identity," it is not a "Jewish" cultural identity.

Portugal is connected to or part of the same land-mass as Spain where all Latinos have their roots. It's almost like claiming everyone of Welsh decent is not British. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal

Portugal is also derived from Latin like Spanish is as well.

You want the MSM to be right so much you're willing to stick your neck out for them it seems.

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It's hard to stay mad at someone who makes you laugh - Jay Leno

Black, white, asian, is. One of these things are not like the other. Of course, from what Ive been reading, it seems race is an outdated notion altogether. So, Id still like to know why it matters that her parents came from Peurto Rico.

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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

What did he actually say?

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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

I guess people like me just like bright shiny things and lots of bright colors. Those little squiggley lines just confuse us. [sarcasm intended]

I watched the Clarence Thomas hearings. It was a disgrace. A trumped up sex-scandal chaired by the VP Joe Biden. What a blast from the past. Let's start talking about "Long John Silver" and pubic hairs on a coke again shall we. Everyone in the office she worked in called the Dem's star witness Anita Hill a bold-faced liar. But it really doesn't matter to the left what is the truth. Never has. And why did the NAACP and the Democrats oppose Clarence Thomas? Because he was critical of Affirmative Action. This wasn't the first time a bunch of Democrats tried to lynch a black man but this time with the help of a black woman.

And I suppose if you tried reading into Obama's real history instead of what the MSM tells you you wouldn't feel that he's so wonderful. If you wanted to find out about him you discover what's wrong with him. Why is it he feels he has to lie in his speeches. Why is it that when he claims he's against Gay-marriage people don't believe him, yet his supporters accept this as being a lie. They're fine with it.

A screwed up President is going to make screwed up appointments.

This was the judge that was first mentioned about a month ago and the last one he should have picked and he picked her because he knew he could get away with it plain and simple. This was an "up your's" appointment and exactly the type I knew he would pick.

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It's hard to stay mad at someone who makes you laugh - Jay Leno

By your measure, that would make me a right-wing fundamentalist.

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"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

Are you saying that there aren't any Hispanic Jews?????

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"