Why Did Obama Choose Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court?

HOW DEEP IS THE CONNECTION?

Sotomayor may already have been working with the DSY for some time. And it’s disturbing that Sotomayor would have held up Lenora Fulani, whose anti-Semitism was widely known, as a role model for youth. . .

How long has Sonia Sotomayor been associated with Fred Newman, the DSY, and Obama?

Is there a connection among Sotomayor, Gates, Obama and the late Fred Newman?

JUICY: " Monday we will reveal the 'secret life of Sonia Sotomayor.' "

Press Release Friday, May 29, 2009: "First, it will probably come as a surprise to both my supporters and detractors to learn I have been an urban educator, and actually taught college courses in the Bronx, at BCC. I became deeply steeped in New York's Puerto Rican culture, which I greatly admire.

"Second, last October Barack Obama panicked and sent his hapless mouthpiece Robert Gibbs out to smear me on 'Hannity & Colmes.' Gibbs tried to dredge up lies from a 25 year-old lawsuit involving Sotomayor's 'mentor.' Gibbs' smears and the lapdog New York Times' front-page echoing of those outrageous attacks on my integrity are about to bite them in Gibbs' amble buttocks; they had no idea in October they would have to regurgitate their words in June.

"That old lawsuit involved Joe 'Crazy Joey' or 'Cocaine Cabranes,' a cocaine-addled federal judge who went ballistic when I exposed he was using his personal divorce lawyer in cases appearing before him as a judge. 'Crazy Joey' tried to destroy me, and used his friends in the Court of Appeals to demonize me, to protect a bankruptcy fraud ring in New Haven federal courts involving the law firms of Irving Perlmutter, Richard Belford and Coan Lewendon & Royston. He even recruited Rudy Giuliani, who plays a cameo role in this theater of the absurd. We have the FBI records to document these outrages.

"As a result of my battles with the arrogant and corrupt judges of the Second Circuit, including the real anti-Semite Irving Kaufman, I became the 'undertaker' for Supreme Court nominations from the Second Circuit, and derailed both Cabranes' and Judge Jon R. Newman's nominations to the Supreme Court during the Clinton administration.

"Newman and 'Cocaine Cabranes' have continued to use their public offices to retaliate because of their personal grievances against me. So I know Sotomayor's 'mentor' and that creepy court as no one else does.

"My column Monday, however, does not deal with the past. It deals with Sotomayor's present. I bear her no personal ill will but her life has been a lie, and she should start telling the truth about whom she really is.

Stay tuned for Monday's BOMBSHELL!!!

The facts that judges choose to see?

White House Damage Control On Sotomayor

Sotomayor -- Aggrieved Minority Empathy Trumps Jurisprudence

Gary Starr at The Neville Awards nails it in his new post today!

Why Obama's pick for the Supreme Court (Sonia Sotomayor) scares both conservatives AND liberals!

Walter Shapiro writing at Politics Daily provides two insights to Obama's Supreme Court nominee that I haven't heard mentioned so far:

While her true inspiration is Nancy Drew, Sotomayor has also revealed that she first became intrigued with being a judge as a child by watching Perry Mason on television.

Wow...now I'm convinced she's right for the Supreme Court of the United States of America...uh huh...

White House fact-sheet pointedly omitted reference to a 2002 case (Center for Reproductive Law & Policy v. Bush). Sotomayor rejected a public interest group's challenge to the Bush policy of banning federally funded non-governmental organizations that work abroad from mentioning or counseling for abortion. This is the Sotomayor decision that leaves liberal abortion rights groups (a normally loyal Obama constituency) nervous.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Rosen, Legal Affairs Editor at The New Republic presents The Case Against Sotomayor

Over the past few weeks, I've been talking to a range of people who have worked with her, nearly all of them former law clerks for other judges on the Second Circuit or former federal prosecutors in New York. Most are Democrats and all of them want President Obama to appoint a judicial star of the highest intellectual caliber who has the potential to change the direction of the court. Nearly all of them acknowledged that Sotomayor is a presumptive front-runner, but nearly none of them raved about her. They expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative.

A summary of the specifics:

• The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was "not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench," as one former Second Circuit clerk for another judge put it
• Her opinions, although competent, are viewed by former prosecutors as not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees.
• Some former clerks and prosecutors expressed concerns about her command of technical legal details

More later:

This is the first in a series of reports by TNR legal affairs editor Jeffrey Rosen about the strengths and weaknesses of the leading candidates on Barack Obama's Supreme Court shortlist.

And, finally: "A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," Sotomayor said...

Politco explains what Newt Gingrich said and what Rush Limbaugh said about her "racist" comments.