"Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling. . . .
On Friday, citing in an e-mail "Frank Ricci's troubled and litigious work history," the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way drew reporters' attention to Ricci's past. Other advocates for Sotomayor have discreetly urged journalists to pursue similar story lines.
Specifically, the advocates have zeroed in on an earlier 1995 lawsuit Ricci filed claiming the city of New Haven discriminated against him because he's dyslexic. The advocates cite other Hartford Courant stories from the same era recounting how Ricci was fired by a fire department in Middletown, Conn., allegedly, Ricci said at the time, because of safety concerns he raised.
Last night, Slate posted "Fire Proof," an article by Dahlia Lithwick detailing Frank Ricci's litigious past."
Smearing people who stand in the way of cherished "progressive" agendas and agenda items is nothing new for these scum sucking slimeball lefty media, groups, and individuals.
We have only to examine the treatment of Sarah Palin to validate those certainties.
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ReplyDeleteThere's no need to attack Ricci. In fact it's sort of despicable. At the same time, the case isn't that big of a deal.
ReplyDeleteFirst, calling it 'Sotomayor's ruling' is disingenuous. All we know is that she agreed, not that she wrote it. We also know that she erred on the side of precedent (some activist judge, right?). The SC ruling was the change of direction.
Then of course this was her 4th (or 5th?) case overturned by the SC out of some 200 or more rulings.
And then finally with all the right-wing attacks on empathy, the fact that Scalia wrote a good paragraph or two about just how hard the non-black firefighters had worked studying for the test is rather interesting. If all that matters is the law (in this case, concerning the outcomes and selection of the test), then why did the justice feel it necessary to emphasize how much these guys had sacrificed to do well? If that's not empathy, I don't know what is....
I will say that I certainly agree that parties shouldn't be able to throw out test results because they fear a lawsuit, and I probably agree with the case overall, but I can't say for sure without knowing the particulars.
Even so, I don't think it's all that damning for Ms. Sotomayor.
All nine SC justices disagreed with Sotomayor. ALL NINE.
ReplyDeleteSotomayor's performance on the bench has always been marginal, at best.
She advanced up the ladder based on Identity Politics, not ability. Her race and gender got her where she is today, not her judicial acumen.
And now, this very day, we're poised to see a fat, angry, brown cow elevated to the highest court in the land because of the way she looks, not what's inside her head or her heart.
But, hey, we knew this is what we'd be getting with Obama, right?
If you voted for him, I hope you like the fiefdom he's creating.
"All nine SC justices disagreed with Sotomayor. ALL NINE."
ReplyDeleteConsidering the vote was 5-4, can you do me a favor and clarify what you mean by this? Also from what I read, Ginsburg was pretty sympathetic to her view. Either way, precedent was still her (and the other two circuit judges) side.
As far as the involvement of race and gender in her advancement, they certainly were involved to a point, but mostly so in the early portions of her career. I find that 'Identity Politics' gets thrown around only when democrats want to do some for somebody who's not a white guy...but whatever.
I'm also not sure what we achieve by calling her a fat, angry, brown cow. Just as personal insults against the Ricci fellow are untoward, so would be ones against Sotomayor.
rahrah, if you read the opinions of all nine justices (or a synopsis of them) you'll see that they all disagreed with Sotomayor's decision, but voted for different reasons.
ReplyDeleteAnd Sotomayor has not had 200 cases go before the SCOTUS. As I recall, she only had about 8 or 9 and 5 or 6 of those were overturned. She is a mediocre judge at best.
Would you submit that no other judge in the U.S. is as good a jurist as she is, and that's why she was chosen? I just don't buy it.
I use those terms to describe Sotomayor because she is:
1) fat
2) angry
3) and brown
I believe her association with the activist group La Raza pretty much gives us a preview of how she'll act. I think her rulings on previous cases support this.
She's had near 200 decisions that would have been eligible for SC review. If only 6 or 7 were actually reviewed, it's because either no appeal was made or the SC deemed her decisions unworthy of review. Also, depending on the year, the SC typically reverses between 65 and 75% of the cases it hears. 4 of 6 overturned is 66%, which reflects greater SC trends. Not to mention that Sam Alito had two of two decisions of his overturned that were heard by the SC. That's a 100% reversal rate, but it doesn't matter, it's a small sample.
ReplyDeleteTRY THIS article. The guy uses I think 374 as the number of total Sotomayor decisions, which is inflated because only around 200 would have been eligible for SC review. Beyond that, I've found no factual errors.
link didnt work,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-31/sonias-batting-average/
as for the rest of it, it's almost certain she'll be confirmed...Lindsey Graham told her as much, so we'll see how her service plays out.
ReplyDeleteWhat counts is the number of cases that went to the SCOTUS for review, not how many she has judged while on the Court of Appeals.
ReplyDeleteOf those reviewed, she was overturned about 70-80% of the time.
She is a mediocre judge.
Do you honestly think there is NO OTHER judge more qualified than Sotomayor to sit on the Court? If you do, then ask yourself WHY Sotomayor was chosen.
I think you only have to look at her picture to figure that one out.
Did you look at my link?
ReplyDelete"What counts is the number of cases that went to the SCOTUS for review, "
So you at least feel that Sam Alito was a mediocre judge, if not that his confirmation should have been opposed on the account that both of the only of his decisions reviewed by the SC were overturned? (That's 100% overturned, 33% more than Sotomayor, between 40% and 25% more than recent averages).
SCOTUS rarely hears a case unless it thinks there's a good chance the judgment will be overruled (reflected in the apprx. overturn rate of 70-75%).
I honestly feel that Sotomayor is an experienced judge, at least as qualified as every other judge out there. Obama was looking for a woman, it's no secret. But with around 50% of our population being female I think SCOTUS should better reflect that.
"A judge might follow the law perfectly in hundreds of decisions that the Supreme Court never hears, but, because panels that hear appellate arguments are drawn at random, she also might be dealt a handful of particularly difficult or unusual cases in which precedent is not a reliable guide. These are the cases the Supreme Court is most likely to review. And we have no way of drawing conclusions about the sample without knowing the complexity of the cases."
"f you have 400 socks in a drawer, and you want to know how many are black and how many are blue, you might draw a few out to look. Suppose of your first five that three are black and two are blue. Would this really imply that 60 percent of the socks are black?"
Sotomayor's years of experience don't equate to superior performance. I've known many workers who had years on the job and weren't worth a shit.
ReplyDeleteJust because Sotomayor was a token brown piece on the liberal's playing board does not mean she's any better than those who suffer from being white and competent in a liberal judicial society which demeans these qualities.
Obama "looking for a woman" is a sad example of the egregious discrimination and bigotry of the Dems/liberals. Obama has an obligation to the citizens of our country to look for the BEST, not a liberal activist judge to serve as a "token" of identity politics and to advance a partisan, liberal agenda in the courts.
Once again, Obama has failed in a leadership role. Somali pirates, Iraq, the economy, the bailouts, and now another failure in leading our judicial system. Just like with a rambunctious and undisciplined little child, soon there will be little left for him to break.
I don't think she's a token. A bit of AA, sure...she's probably one of the top 100 qualified in the nation (at least). Now Harriet Miers was a token, you were against her?
ReplyDeleteSo if there's 100 or more jurists more qualified than Sotomayor, why is she there?
ReplyDeleteWhy not a white male jurist who's even more qualified?
Identity politics, that's why.
Were it not for her gender and ethnicity, would we have ever heard of her? My guess is that we wouldn't.
"So if there's 100 or more jurists more qualified than Sotomayor,"
ReplyDeleteWell that certainly is misconstruing what I said.
She's at least top 100...and what separates these top 100 probably isn't much.
I see value in having a diverse court...if you don't, fine, but currently 'diverse' is not a term I'd use to describe SCOTUS, with Sotomayor we'll be closer.
But please, did you oppose Harriet Myers, who was almost without question a 'token'?
What's your source for saying that Sotomayor is one of the top 100 jurists in the U.S.? Just wondering how you arrived at that conclusion.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think "diversity" has a place in the very narrow scope of work done by SCOTUS in determing the constitutionality of cases?
Remember, SCOTUS does not try cases. It does not question witnesses, it does not examine evidence, it does not see victims, witnesses, or defendants. Their job is to decide if the decision of a lower court is constitutional.
I didn't follow the Myers nomination.