"A black sheriff?!": The Official Topic of Obama and New Era American Politics

[Mandark]

He has a point.  I mean, just how did Dr. Dre get that degree?

[T-Short]

He has a point.  I mean, just how did Dr. Dre get that degree?

 

[siamesedreamer]

I agree that its dumb to think she isn't smart. But, this is what I believe is the heart of the article:

Her opinions, although competent, are viewed by former prosecutors as not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees. It's customary, for example, for Second Circuit judges to circulate their draft opinions to invite a robust exchange of views. Sotomayor, several former clerks complained, rankled her colleagues by sending long memos that didn't distinguish between substantive and trivial points, with petty editing suggestions--fixing typos and the like--rather than focusing on the core analytical issues.

Sloppy and depthless are probably better adjectives.

[Eric P]

He has a point.  I mean, just how did Dr. Dre get that degree?

he cheated off of ed lover's papers

[Human Snorenado]

The idea she isn't smart is hilarious. She was at the top of her class in the top law school in the country. You don't do that without being fucking smart.

Didn't Bush go to Yale?

Where he was a C student.  Homegirl graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton and was an editor of the Yale Law Review.  I've seen people trying to compare her to Harriet Miers, which is just laughable.  Let's do some quick comparisons:

Sotomayor:  graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton.  Miers:  graduated from SMU, no honors.
Sotomayor:  Yale Law Review.  Miers:  SMU law school, no such distinction.
Sotomayor:  Assistant DA.  Miers:  no criminal law experience.
Sotomayor:  6 years as Federal District Court Judge.  Miers:  No judicial experience.
Sotomayor:  10 years on 2nd District Court of Appeals.  Miers:  No judicial experience.

I wouldn't be against appointing a lawyer with no experience as a judge to the SC, but trying to appoint a lawyer of such low distinction was truly, truly laughable.  So it was completely in character for our C student President.

[Mandark]

Obama had the same charge of "lacking depth" leveled at him during the campaign.  As with Sotomayor, the people making the accusations are almost exclusively people with no actual policy/legal expertise.

From Adam Liptak, actual lawyer:

"Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial opinions are marked by diligence, depth and unflashy competence. If they are not always a pleasure to read, they are usually models of modern judicial craftsmanship, which prizes careful attention to the facts in the record and a methodical application of layers of legal principles."

Sounds good.  So long as she can keep her vagina from unduly influencing her votes, of course.

[Human Snorenado]

The criticism on the left is kind of funny, too.  They're pissed that A) she's not liberal enough, B) she's not some sort of super duper intellectual that will "counter-balance" Scalia, or some such crap.

[Mandark]

I always imagine him as Wile E. Coyote, introducing himself to people as "Justice Scalia, Super-Genius".  He and Newt should get together and form a club for self-proclaimed philosopher kings.

[FlameOfCallandor]

Which one of you guys inspired Mike Judge's new TV show?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203771904574180442354457688.html

Director Mike Judge’s new animated television series “The Goode Family” is a send-up of a clan of environmentalists who live by the words “What would Al Gore do?” Gerald and Helen Goode want nothing more than to minimize their carbon footprint. They feed their dog, Che, only veggies (much to the pet’s dismay) and Mr. Goode dutifully separates sheets of toilet paper when his wife accidentally buys two-ply. And, of course, the family drives a hybrid

I can see Cheebs or even Triumph alone in their mothers basement (or N.C. trailer in triumphs case) desperately separating his toilet paper with visions of Al Gore gently entering him as his reward. 

[Dickie Dee]

In the months ahead, it will be important for those of us in the U.S. Senate to weigh her qualifications and character as well as her ability to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences.

Damn estrogen and melanin getting in the way of higher brain functions.

He has a point, we can only really trust white males who are genderless and raceless.

[Dickie Dee]

Which one of you guys inspired Mike Judge's new TV show?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203771904574180442354457688.html

Director Mike Judge’s new animated television series “The Goode Family” is a send-up of a clan of environmentalists who live by the words “What would Al Gore do?” Gerald and Helen Goode want nothing more than to minimize their carbon footprint. They feed their dog, Che, only veggies (much to the pet’s dismay) and Mr. Goode dutifully separates sheets of toilet paper when his wife accidentally buys two-ply. And, of course, the family drives a hybrid

I can see Cheebs or even Triumph alone in their mothers basement (or N.C. trailer in triumphs case) desperately separating his toilet paper with visions of Al Gore gently entering him as his reward. 

Legitimate question, since we know which of us inspired Idiocracy

[AdmiralViscen]

rankled her colleagues by sending long memos that didn't distinguish between substantive and trivial points, with petty suggestions .... rather than focusing on the core analytical issues.

Sloppy and depthless are probably better adjectives.

Now who does that remind me of...

[Brehvolution]

In the months ahead, it will be important for those of us in the U.S. Senate to weigh her qualifications and character as well as her ability to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences.

Damn estrogen and melanin getting in the way of higher brain functions.

Don't forget the re-fried beans.

[FlameOfCallandor]

Legitimate question, since we know which of us inspired Idiocracy

Who? The EBers who make a new buy thread every day? or the ones who laugh at every single dick joke someone posts?

[Human Snorenado]

Legitimate question, since we know which of us inspired Idiocracy

Who? The EBers who make a new buy thread every day? or the ones who laugh at every single dick joke someone posts?

or the one who had daddy pay his way in life rather than earning anything by the sweat of his own brow? 

[FlameOfCallandor]

or the one who had daddy pay his way in life rather than earning anything by the sweat of his own brow? 

Like I said cheebs.

[Human Snorenado]

or the one who had daddy pay his way in life rather than earning anything by the sweat of his own brow? 

Like I said cheebs.

that's mommy.  i'm talking about a certain someone who had daddy pay for him to go to film school and breathes out of his mouth.

[FlameOfCallandor]

I would add you to the list too but I'm sure your mom didn't have to sleep with too many red necks to get you through Alvin community barber college.

[Human Snorenado]

I would add you to the list too but I'm sure your mom didn't have to sleep with too many red necks to get you through Alvin community barber college.

No, unlike you, parasite, I took out loans to go to college which I then paid back by doing WORK.  Now that I'm going back this fall I will be paying for it all with money that I saved up by doing WORK.  The only help either of my parents ever gave me other than a little bit of cash on birthdays or Christmas was a car my dad helped me buy about ten years ago... that I paid him back in full for.

[Phoenix Dark]

Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb: "Obama seems to have the views of a 21-year-old Hispanic girl -- that is, only by having a black president, an Hispanic justice, a female secretary of State, and Bozo the Clown as vice president will the United States become a true 'vanguard of societal ideas and changes.'"

 

[Dickie Dee]

Sotomayor also claimed: "For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir -- rice, beans and pork -- that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events."
This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo -- pigs' tongue and ears -- would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.

Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn't certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.

"It's pretty disturbing," said Levey. "It's one thing to say that occasionally a judge will despite his or her best efforts to be impartial ... allow occasional biases to cloud impartialit

 

[Mandark]

What's all this nonsense about how the GOP will be careful opposing Sotomayor because of her gender and ethnicity, anyway?  If anything, her gender and ethnicity have provided them the blueprint for their opposition so far.

Remember when the GOP was going to go soft on Obama because they wouldn't want to look racist?

[Dickie Dee]

It's not even like they took a few swings and missed and their rhetoric degenerated in their frustration, they went straight to it.

[Brehvolution]

How much more predictable can the GOP be? They always do exactly the opposite of what they say they are going to do.

[Mandark]

Jim Henley predicts "Sotomayor <3 Santeria" as an upcoming wingnut meme.

[Human Snorenado]

How much more predictable can the GOP be? They always do exactly the opposite of what they say they are going to do.

To be fair, (some of, anyway) the people in the party recognize that attacking her in such a manner is a lose-lose proposition for them, but the mouth-breathers that comprise the base (think Rush's listeners and the average Glenn Beck viewer) WANT to attacker her like that.  Oh well, play them off keyboard cat!

[Human Snorenado]

Jim Henley predicts "Sotomayor <3 Santeria" as an upcoming wingnut meme.

I'm particularly fond of "Che Guevara in robes" myself.

[Brehvolution]

Yes I stole it, but it one of the most hilarious things I've seen recently.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/05/27/a_divider_not_a_uniter.html#029954a

[Mandark]

At The Corner, Mark Krikorian writes not one, but two posts on why we shouldn't stress the last syllable in Sotomayor's name, even if it is how she herself pronounces it.

Apparently our culture is at stake.

[Phoenix Dark]

What's all this nonsense about how the GOP will be careful opposing Sotomayor because of her gender and ethnicity, anyway?  If anything, her gender and ethnicity have provided them the blueprint for their opposition so far.

Remember when the GOP was going to go soft on Obama because they wouldn't want to look racist?

Yea, we posted like a billion articles about how the GOP was carefully weighing their options, but in a matter of hours they unloaded almost every conceivable under-the-belt blow.

[Phoenix Dark]

Newt Gingrich just twittered: "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."

This was preceded by: "Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman' new racism is no better than old racism"

While Gingrich doesn't have a vote in the Senate, he may have passed the litmus test.

[TakingBackSunday]

le sigh

[Dickie Dee]

Alito during the confirmation hearings:

Because when a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position.
[...]

When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.

 

[Oblivion]

Remember when the conservatards were complaining about how the liberals were being unfair to Palin during the campaign because she was a woman (and not because she was, you know, marginally smarter than the average kumquat)?

Good times.

[Phoenix Dark]

Also, where is this "she was picked cuz she's hispanic" shit coming from? There was a sense that Obama wanted to choose a woman so there would be two on the bench again. But how does that mean this was unfair...or that she is under-qualified compared to the white males she apparently beat out of the job? She's got more experience than any of the current SC justices had before being nominated, she graduated at the top of her class at a couple top universities, etc.

[Crushed]

Also, where is this "she was picked cuz she's hispanic" shit coming from?

Answer:

she's hispanic

[Phoenix Dark]

You're probably right

also

Top Senate Republican strategists tell Politico that, "barring unknown facts about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the GOP plans no scorched-earth opposition to her confirmation as a Supreme Court justice."

Not a single senator has come out publicly in opposition to Sotomayor's confirmation.

Said one GOP aide: "The sentiment is overwhelming that the Senate should do due diligence but should not make a mountain out of a molehill. If there's no 'there' there, we shouldn't try to create one."

http://politicalwire.com/

[siamesedreamer]

  at the 10 year ... 270 bps in two days

[Human Snorenado]

Also, where is this "she was picked cuz she's hispanic" shit coming from? There was a sense that Obama wanted to choose a woman so there would be two on the bench again. But how does that mean this was unfair...or that she is under-qualified compared to the white males she apparently beat out of the job? She's got more experience than any of the current SC justices had before being nominated, she graduated at the top of her class at a couple top universities, etc.

Because it's Obama, therefore everything is motivated by race and shit.

[Brehvolution]

I read in poligaf how awkward it was going to be because Alito was part of a group of people who were trying to make Princeton not to let a woman study law there. She was one of the first groups of women to have studied law there.

At least I believe it was Alito that they mentioned.

[siamesedreamer]

30-year fixed rate mortgages went from 5.08% to 6.52% today.


Its pretty lolz-worthy to think there isn't some angle to her race. I mean come on. But, is it the only reason? Hell no. I'm a little surprised there isn't more bitching about the Catholic stranglehold on the bench though.

[Cheebs]

Isn't she the most experienced judge to be nominated? I remember hearing that said a few times the other day. That would counter the argument quite well.

[Phoenix Dark]

Great article on Gates. Some of the details on Rumsfield's disaster run are just smh-worthy
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1901342,00.html?xid=rss-politics

"If you ever get a chance to interview Donald Rumsfeld," a retired four-star general told me in 2005, "ask him two questions and see which one lights up his eyes. Ask him what our force posture should be toward China 10 years from now. And then ask him what tactical changes we should make on the ground in Iraq as a result of the last three months of combat. I'll bet you anything, he gets more excited about China."

And that was the problem. The Cheney-Rumsfeld axis, which essentially ran national-security policy in the first half of the Bush Administration, was stuck in the Cold War. Rather than fight the enemy we had — the stateless terrorists of al-Qaeda — they sought more conventional enemies. Attention quickly — too quickly — shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq. And then, once the conventional armored push to Baghdad was completed, the ongoing war effort became — amazingly — a bureaucratic orphan. "Every time we tried to do something for the troops in the field in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we had to go outside the regular Pentagon bureaucracy to get it done," Gates recalled. "For example, there was no institutional home" for figuring out how to combat roadside bombs — but there were plenty of people working on how to counter missiles from North Korea.

[Kestastrophe]

lol

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124346903426760553.html

When Barack Obama announced that the government will use its fist to wave onto the highways of America cars that get 39 miles to a gallon of liquefied switch grass or something, he said, "Everybody wins."

Everybody? What country has he been living in? This marks the end of the internal combustion engine as we knew it, and it is the way Americans have defined, designed and literally driven much of the nation's culture for as long as anyone can remember.

CAFE, the fuel-mileage standards Congress mandated 34 years ago, gradually squeezed the size and life out of America's cars.

We are being offered a different world now. One designed, defined and driven by a new set of un-fun obsessions -- carbon footprints, greenhouse gas and alternative energy. This large transition passes before us, barely seen, as the gray water of public policy. Hardly anyone notices how much is being changed.

"Everybody wins?" Not quite. What's winning is a worldview that goes deeper than the data beneath global warming. The gasoline cars they want to turn into scrap were about a lot more than the thrill of roaring on.

The cars and their culture were a manifestation of what made the U.S. really different. The cars, like the country, were big, fast and unfettered. Their drivers were delirious with the possibility of finding something new in life. "It's a town full of losers, and I'm pullin' out of here to win!"

We'll see what happens when people walk into auto showrooms (if they exist) and every car has a wheelbase of about 100 inches.

Obama making things unfun
 

[Crushed]

GODDAMN IT MY PENIS EXTENSION (ignores that there are large hybrid SUVs and that hybrids these days can look completely normal like any other car)

[Eric P]

poor top gear, each week test driving yugoslavian super cars like the yugorrari, the yugombini, the yugo martin, the yugo royce, and the yogo martin

[brawndolicious]

Top Gear did once test the efficiency of supercars.  I think the highest one was like 6 mpg.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I'm tired of hearing about Sotomayor.  I remember barely hearing anything about Alito or Roberts in comparison.

[Brehvolution]

Since the repubs can't actually do anything but bitch, all you get is noise.

[Great Rumbler]

lol

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124346903426760553.html

When Barack Obama announced that the government will use its fist to wave onto the highways of America cars that get 39 miles to a gallon of liquefied switch grass or something, he said, "Everybody wins."

Everybody? What country has he been living in? This marks the end of the internal combustion engine as we knew it, and it is the way Americans have defined, designed and literally driven much of the nation's culture for as long as anyone can remember.

CAFE, the fuel-mileage standards Congress mandated 34 years ago, gradually squeezed the size and life out of America's cars.

We are being offered a different world now. One designed, defined and driven by a new set of un-fun obsessions -- carbon footprints, greenhouse gas and alternative energy. This large transition passes before us, barely seen, as the gray water of public policy. Hardly anyone notices how much is being changed.

"Everybody wins?" Not quite. What's winning is a worldview that goes deeper than the data beneath global warming. The gasoline cars they want to turn into scrap were about a lot more than the thrill of roaring on.

The cars and their culture were a manifestation of what made the U.S. really different. The cars, like the country, were big, fast and unfettered. Their drivers were delirious with the possibility of finding something new in life. "It's a town full of losers, and I'm pullin' out of here to win!"

We'll see what happens when people walk into auto showrooms (if they exist) and every car has a wheelbase of about 100 inches.

Obama making things unfun
 

I have fun driving my mid-sized car with moderate fuel-efficiency and not having to pay a fortune on gas anytime I want to go somewhere.

[T-Short]

lol

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124346903426760553.html

When Barack Obama announced that the government will use its fist to wave onto the highways of America cars that get 39 miles to a gallon of liquefied switch grass or something, he said, "Everybody wins."

Everybody? What country has he been living in? This marks the end of the internal combustion engine as we knew it, and it is the way Americans have defined, designed and literally driven much of the nation's culture for as long as anyone can remember.

CAFE, the fuel-mileage standards Congress mandated 34 years ago, gradually squeezed the size and life out of America's cars.

We are being offered a different world now. One designed, defined and driven by a new set of un-fun obsessions -- carbon footprints, greenhouse gas and alternative energy. This large transition passes before us, barely seen, as the gray water of public policy. Hardly anyone notices how much is being changed.

"Everybody wins?" Not quite. What's winning is a worldview that goes deeper than the data beneath global warming. The gasoline cars they want to turn into scrap were about a lot more than the thrill of roaring on.

The cars and their culture were a manifestation of what made the U.S. really different. The cars, like the country, were big, fast and unfettered. Their drivers were delirious with the possibility of finding something new in life. "It's a town full of losers, and I'm pullin' out of here to win!"

We'll see what happens when people walk into auto showrooms (if they exist) and every car has a wheelbase of about 100 inches.

Obama making things unfun
 

haha wow, this is distinguished mentally-challenged in so many ways

[Kestastrophe]

I have fun driving my mid-sized car with moderate fuel-efficiency and not having to pay a fortune on gas anytime I want to go somewhere.

And you call yourself a man? Pffffffffftttt

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I share a Honda Accord with my wife and ride the biofueled public buses 

[close]

[Kestastrophe]

O lawd, the wsj is on a roll

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124355131075164361.html

With each passing week that the assault against global capitalism continues in Washington, I become more nostalgic for one missing voice: Milton Friedman's. No one could slice and dice the sophistry of government market interventions better than Milton

I would rank Milton Friedman, next to Ronald Reagan, as the greatest apostle for freedom and free markets in the second half of the 20th century.

I've been thinking a lot lately of one of my last conversations with Milton, who warned that "even though socialism is a discredited economic model and capitalism is raising living standards to new heights, the left intellectuals continue to push for bigger government everywhere I look." He predicted that people would be seduced by collectivist ideas again.

He was right. In the midst of this global depression, rotten ideas like trillion-dollar stimulus plans, nationalization of banks and confiscatory taxes on America's wealth producers are all the rage. Meanwhile, it is Milton Friedman and his principles of free trade, low tax rates and deregulation that are standing trial as the murderers of global prosperity.

The myth that the stock-market collapse was due to a failure of Friedman's principles could hardly be more easily refuted. No one was more critical of the Bush spending and debt binge than Friedman. The massive run up in money and easy credit that facilitated the housing and credit bubbles was precisely the foolishness that Friedman spent a lifetime warning against.

The Obama administration wants to power our society by spending three or four times more money to generate electricity using solar and wind power than it would cost to use coal or natural gas. The president says that this initiative will create "green jobs."

Milton knew how to create real wealth-producing jobs. Once, when he visited India in the early 1960s, John Kenneth Galbraith, the U.S. ambassador, welcomed him by only half-joking, "I can think of no place where your free-market ideas can do less harm than in India." Talk about irony. India has adopted much of the Friedman free-market model and has moved nearly 200 million people out of destitution and despair. 

[Van Cruncheon]

why is THIS insane quote not the bolded one

I would rank Milton Friedman, next to Ronald Reagan, as the greatest apostle for freedom and free markets in the second half of the 20th century.

reagan, free market apostle

[Phoenix Dark]

if reagan was apostle, who was christ 

[Van Cruncheon]

ayn rand, you silly billy

[Phoenix Dark]

[youtube=560,345]SqzSe1JaPLI[/youtube]

[Kestastrophe]

Its Galt, everyone knows that God isn't a woman

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unless Ayn was a.....you know......

(_o)(_o) 
   .
 8=>

[close]

[Van Cruncheon]

[Crushed]

When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.

- Samuel Alito

whoops