News Gingrich: Sotomayor is a threat to the Republic! She doesn't even deserve a vote!

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Today, Renewing American Leadership, a 501©3 nonprofit that he heads, sent out an email to supporters calling on them to both "send blast faxes" to U.S. Senators demanding opposition to Sotomayor and contribute money to help the fight. The email opens with this quote, from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream: that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

...

From the Desk of Newt Gingrich

"I have a dream: that my four little children will one day live

in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their

skin, but by the content of their character."

- Dr. Martin Luther King

Can you imagine if the President of the United States nominated a judge to the U.S. Supreme Court who said this:

"My experience as a white man will make me a better judge than a Latina woman would be."

Or could you imagine if that same judge ruled from the bench to deny 18 African-American firefighters a promotion just because of their skin color?

That judge would be called a bigot -- and in my judgment, rightly so! Would there be any doubt that he would be FORCED to WITHDRAW his nomination for the Supreme Court?

None.

There are only two options for how we govern ourselves – by laws, or by the will of those in power. The rule of law represents objective, dispassionate knowable standards that are applied and enforced equally to all citizens regardless of their background.

The will of those in power represents subjective, fleeting standards that are never fully known by any and are applied purely to satisfy the wishes of a small, concentrated group in power.

True justice is blind. It does not consider one's religion, wealth, race or in this case sex, family origin and ethnicity. To do so would be unjust.

To put someone on our nation's highest court who believes these traits should be considered in cases before the court, would be wrong.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor has proven, by her own admission, that she is such a judge. Knowing this, President Obama should withdraw her nomination to the Supreme Court.

Consider what Judge Sotomayor said about how her being a Latina woman will affect her decisions as a judge:

"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."

You read that right -- Judge Sotomayor said that her experience as a person of a particular sex and ethnic background will make her a better judge than a person of another sex and a different ethnic background!

When did that view become acceptable?

If Civil War, suffrage, and Civil Rights are to mean anything, we cannot accept that conclusion. It is simply un-American. There is no room on the bench of the United States Supreme Court for this worldview.

The checks and balances between the three branches of government are designed to prevent any small faction of society from exerting undue influence over the rest of us. If President Obama will not withdraw his nomination, then the Senate has a duty to ensure that judges with who hold these beliefs are not confirmed to serve on the Supreme Court.

SEND BLAST FAXES TO EVERY U.S.

SENATOR, DEMANDING THEY REJECT

JUDICIAL ACTIVISTS LIKE SONIA SOTOMAYOR!

The United States is a nation of immigrants from many backgrounds and their contributions have made our country great but that was made possible because our nation was built upon a solid foundation of law and order. The rule of law should be non-negotiable. It cannot be subordinated to ethnic or racial biases. To do so would be to make our Constitution arbitrary and meaningless undermining the very foundations of our society.

The rule of law is a crucial safeguard for the preservation of freedom.

As our civic and public leaders from many backgrounds have proven, America should continue to stand as a land of equality of opportunity, NOT equality of outcomes. Cases brought before the U.S. Supreme Court should be judged on the merits of the arguments rigorously tested against the United States Constitution. They should NOT be judged based on the racial and ethnic preferences of the judges making the decision!

Unfortunately, that's exactly what we'll get if Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed to the Supreme Court -- a judge who will interpret the law based on her ethnic background, rather than based on the LAW. In fact, she has gone even further to say, "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences... our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

These are actual quotes from Judge Sotomayor, spoken at a symposium sponsored by the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal in October 2001. And as if that wasn't enough to prove her ethnic-based (and gender-based) bias on the bench, that's not all she said:

"I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions... enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging."

Remember, this is the same woman who, when speaking at Duke Law School, made it clear that she believes it is a judge's role to "legislate from the bench": responding to a question on the pros and cons of different types of judicial clerkships, she stated that the court "is where policy is made!" She tried to correct her slip, by joking that "I know this is on tape and I should never say that, because we don't ‘make law,' I know, I know." But, she already made herself clear: She believes JUDGES MAKE LAW!

She is wrong. Lawmakers make law NOT judges.

Words mean things and her words give her away. No amount of explaining or spin can change what she truly believes and if she is confirmed she will bring those beliefs to the Supreme Court.

And that wasn't just one little "slip" -- in a 1996 article she co-wrote for the Suffolk University Law Review, she said, "Our society would be strait-jacketed were not the courts, with the able assistance of the lawyers, constantly overhauling the law and adapting it to the realities of ever-changing social, industrial and political conditions."

It gets worse: According the American Bar Association, Sotomayor is a member of La Raza ("the Race"). The National Council of La Raza was the group that was willing to compromise our national security by promoting driver's licenses for illegal aliens, amnesty programs, and no immigration law enforcement by local and state police.

The U.S. Supreme Court is no place for these kinds of judicial philosophies -- we need to STOP this nomination from going any further before it is too late!

SEND BLAST FAXES TO EVERY U.S.

SENATOR, DEMANDING THEY REJECT

JUDICIAL ACTIVISTS LIKE SONIA SOTOMAYOR!

Of course, no one believes that any judge can be 100% impartial and unbiased in every situation. Judges are human beings, and will occasionally allow their personal biases to cloud their attempts at impartiality.

But this is VERY different -- this judge is making it CLEAR that she thinks she SHOULD be biased and partial, based on her ethnicity and gender!

As noted this week in The Hill, "these statements raise concerns about whether Sotomayor, who was raised under modest circumstances in the Bronx, would serve as a neutral arbiter in a case pitting a wealthy white male against a less wealthy man or woman of color."

To understand the judicial temperament Judge Sotomayer would bring to the Supreme Court, just look at one of her most controversial decisions -- Ricci v. DeStefano. Sotomayor approved of the city of New Haven's racial quota system and its decision to deny 18 firefighters their earned promotions -- based on their skin color. This even provoked her own colleague, Judge Jose Cabranes (a fellow Clinton appointee) to object to the issued opinion that contained "no reference whatsoever to the constitutional issues at the core of this case!"

When judges make decisions based not on the application of law but on their personal biases about an issue at hand, the independence and authority of the judiciary is compromised.

Concerns about Sotomayor's activist view of the law grew so great that, despite the fact that President George H.W. Bush appointed her to the district court in 1991, 29 United States Senators voted against her nomination to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998.

THIS time... she shouldn't even get a vote, and should be withdrawn from consideration. It's just not right -- every American should expect that their sons and daughters from every background can rise by applying the work ethic under equal protection under the law.

Your background should NEVER impact the application of law under the U.S. Constitution. It should not be a consideration by the judge or an expected consideration by the judged. Decisions made by the highest court in the land should be made on the basis of what is right and wrong -- not who is right and who is wrong!

When politicians, judges, or law enforcement officials choose to exercise their own judgment in lieu of what the citizens have decided in a Representative Republic, the very idea of self-government is eroded.

We must not be blinded by the allure of "good intentions". We cannot defend our liberties by ignoring the system that allows for the protection of those liberties in the first place. The rule of law is the means by which a free people protect their liberty in a society of equals.

Barack Obama has made a poor choice by sending Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the U.S. Senate. If he does not correct his mistake, American who care about justice, must take action -- let the Senate know that you OPPOSE this nomination. And we've got a GREAT way to do that!

We've set up a website where you can send "blast faxes" to EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE SENATE, telling them to REJECT Sotomayor's nomination as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice! For less that what it would cost you to gather every fax number and send all those faxes yourself, you can send SCORES of faxes, ALL AT ONCE to Capitol Hill -- to make SURE they hear your voice!

BUT... we have to act QUICKLY! Sotomayor's nomination will be debated very soon in the Senate Judiciary Committee! SEND YOUR FAXES NOW!

SEND BLAST FAXES TO EVERY U.S.

SENATOR, DEMANDING THEY REJECT

JUDICIAL ACTIVISTS LIKE SONIA SOTOMAYOR!

Your friend,

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House

Renewing American Leadership

P.S. The Obama White House is already attacking me for pointing out the obvious: that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court. When he was specifically asked at the daily briefing to respond to my statements, spokesman Robert Gibbs gave a very ominous warning to anyone who dares to challenge this nomination:

"I think it is probably important for anyone involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they've decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation."

Well, I am not going to back down and neither should you. I see the damage that this nomination could do to our Constitution... and our country. We MUST stop Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court -- or any OTHER nomination that threatens the Republic. Justice demands it!

SEND BLAST FAXES TO EVERY U.S.

SENATOR, DEMANDING THEY REJECT

JUDICIAL ACTIVISTS LIKE SONIA SOTOMAYOR!

We need YOUR help to take this fight to Capitol Hill. Please consider supporting Renewing American Leadership with a generous donation today. $25, $50, or $100 will dramatically help us stand strong for the Rule of Law in America!

PLEASE MAKE YOUR BEST

CONTRIBUTION NOW:

DONATE ONLINE!

Paid for by Renewing American Leadership recognized as a public charity by the IRS under Section 501©(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Your generous contribution to support our important work is deductible as a charitable contribution to the maximum extent permitted by law.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/05/29...r-racist-claim/

[Chica Yeyé 41]

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I was going to start a new topic and post this there, but seeing this fresh, new thread on the same subject, I feel the need to pile on

The Sotomayor Rules

Some were made to be broken.

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

President Barack Obama has laid down his ground rules for the debate over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. The big question now is whether Republicans agree to play by rules that neither Mr. Obama nor his party have themselves followed.

Ground Rule No. 1, as decreed by the president, is that this is to be a discussion primarily about Judge Sotomayor's biography, not her qualifications. The media gurus complied, with inspiring stories of how she was born to Puerto Rican immigrants, how she was raised by a single mom in a Bronx housing project, how she went on to Princeton and then Yale. In the years that followed she presumably issued a judicial opinion here or there, but whatever.

The president, after all, had taken great pains to explain that this is more than an American success story. Rather, it is Judge Sotomayor's biography that uniquely qualifies her to sit on the nation's highest bench -- that gives her the "empathy" to rule wisely. Judge Sotomayor agrees: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn't lived that life," she said in 2001.

If so, perhaps we can expect her to join in opinions with the wise and richly experienced Clarence Thomas. That would be the same Justice Thomas who lost his father, and was raised by his mother in a rural Georgia town, in a shack without running water, until he was sent to his grandfather. The same Justice Thomas who had to work every day after school, though he was not allowed to study at the Savannah Public Library because he was black. The same Justice Thomas who became the first in his family to go to college and receive a law degree from Yale.

By the president's measure, the nation couldn't find a more empathetic referee than Justice Thomas. And yet here's what Mr. Obama had to say last year when Pastor Rick Warren asked him about the Supreme Court: "I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don't think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation."

In other words, nine months ago Mr. Obama thought that the primary qualification for the High Court was the soundness of a nominee's legal thinking, or at least that's what Democrats have always stressed when working against a conservative judge. Throughout the Bush years, it was standard Democratic senatorial practice to comb through every last opinion, memo, job application and college term paper, all with an aim of creating a nominee "too extreme" or "unqualified" to sit on the federal bench.

Mr. Obama knows this, as he took part in it, joining a Senate minority who voted against both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito. Mr. Obama also understands a discussion of Judge Sotomayor's legal thinking means a discussion about "judicial activism" -- a political loser. In a day when voters routinely rise up to rebuke their activist courts on issues ranging from gay marriage to property rights, few red-state Democrats want to go there. Moreover, a number of Judge Sotomayor's specific legal opinions -- whether on racial preferences, or gun restrictions -- put her to the left of most Americans.

Which brings us to Ground Rule No. 2, which is that Republicans are not allowed to criticize Judge Sotomayor, for the reason that she is the first Hispanic nominee to the High Court. The Beltway media also dutifully latched on to this White House talking point, reporting threats from leading Democrats, including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who intoned that Republicans "oppose her at their peril."

This would be the same Mr. Schumer who had this to say about Miguel Estrada, President Bush's Hispanic nominee (who, by the way, came to this country as an immigrant from Honduras) to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2002: Mr. Estrada "is like a Stealth missile -- with a nose cone -- coming out of the right wing's deepest silo." That would be the same Mr. Schumer who ambushed Mr. Estrada in a Senate hearing, smearing him with allegations made by unnamed former associates. That would be the same Mr. Schumer who sat on the Judiciary Committee, where leaked memos later showed that Democrats feared Mr. Estrada would use a position on the D.C. Circuit as a launching pad to become the nation's . . . first Hispanic Supreme Court judge. Two tortured years later, Mr. Estrada withdrew, after the Democrats waged seven filibusters against a confirmation vote.

Republicans will be tempted by this history to go ugly. They might instead lay down their own rules, the first being that they will not partake in the tactics of personal destruction that were waged by the left on nominees such as Mr. Thomas or Mr. Alito or Mr. Estrada. But the party could also make a rule to not be scared away from using Judge Sotomayor's nomination, or future Obama picks, as platforms for big, civil, thorough debates about the role of the courts and the risk of activist judges to American freedoms and beliefs.

Edited May 29, 2009 by Barza Woman

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Len,

The Republic is under existential threat by a short Latina from the BX and you find humor in the situation?

You disgust me!

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Len,

The Republic is under existential threat by a short Latina from the BX and you find humor in the situation?

You disgust me!

There:

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Gingrich is a #######. He has zero credibility.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Gingrich is a #######. He has zero credibility.

He almost single-handed ended forty years of Democratic rule in the House of Representatives. Only a fool would dismiss him so out of hand.

GINGRICH, Newton Leroy, a Representative from Georgia; born in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pa., June 17, 1943; attended school at various military installations; graduated from Baker High School, Columbus, Ga., 1961; B.A., Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., 1965; M.A., Tulane University, New Orleans, La., 1968; Ph.D., same university, 1971; teacher, West Georgia College, Carrollton, 1970-1978; elected as a Republican to the Ninety-sixth and to the nine succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1979-January 3, 1999); reelected to the One Hundred Sixth Congress but did not take his seat; minority whip (One Hundred First through One Hundred Third Congresses); Speaker of the House (One Hundred Fourth and One Hundred Fifth Congresses).

Edited May 30, 2009 by Mister_Bill

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Gingrich is a #######. He has zero credibility.

He almost single-handed ended forty years of Democratic rule in the House of Representatives. Only a fool would dismiss him so out of hand.

I love it when they talk foolish. I'm gonna love it when they're so shocked and surprised, too.

[girarm 0]

Gingrich is a #######. He has zero credibility.

Newt Gingrich is a brilliant man, a great thinker, and a great strategist... It is good to always listen to what he has to say... You should never dimiss anyone as a like Gingrich as a #######

[one...two...tree 2,762]

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Dismiss him out of hand?

I dismiss his shitty grandstanding opinions.

That he's been around for such a long time reflects only on the people that voted for and continue to vote for him.

Thankfully I'm not one of them.

More fool you.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Dismiss him out of hand?

I dismiss his shitty grandstanding opinions.

That he's been around for such a long time reflects only on the people that voted for and continue to vote for him.

Thankfully I'm not one of them.

More fool you.

Must be more of that British humor.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

It's amazing that you think Obama and the liberal way is all there is, and that your views won't ever be ridiculed and out of favor. May you soon be blessed with hindsight.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It's amazing that you think Obama and the liberal way is all there is, and that your views won't ever be ridiculed and out of favor. May you soon be blessed with hindsight.

:rofl: