While going though some papers yesterday, I came across the following story in The Politico:
White House urged to address ‘racist’ charge
Some Democrats and political analysts are urging the White House to shift course and concede that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor made an error when she suggested in 2001 that Hispanic women would make better judges than white men.
I thought this must be a joke. “Some Democrats” couldn’t be such cowards.
Let’s recap what’s going on here:
To my horror, while getting ready this morning for the “Brakfast Read” I read this:
White House concedes Sonia Sotomayor misspoke in 2001
The White House moved Friday to try to tamp down a swirling controversy over a 2001 speech in which Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor suggested that Hispanic women make better judges than white men.
“I’m sure she would have restated it,” President Barack Obama said in an interview with NBC News, referring to Sotomayor’s speech that was later reprinted in a law journal.
[…]
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went a little further, saying, “I think she’d say that her word choice in 2001 was poor.”
I was about to gouge my own eyeballs out. Maybe I should be happy they didn’t repudiate her with the infamous “That’s not the Sotomayor we knew”. No Robert Gibbs, her choice of words was perfect, and she was right. When will Dems grow a pair?
Here is what Sandra Day O’Connor said about her nomination to the SC
“I bring to the court the perspective of a woman primarily in a sense that I am female, just as I am white, a college graduate, etc.
“Yes, I will bring the understanding of a woman to the court, but I doubt that that alone will affect my decisions,”
Not too long ago during the most recent confirmation to the SC (When Sen Lindsay Graham cried like a baby),Sammy Alito said among other things
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.
Ball-less Democrats!
Someone pinch me. I must be dreaming. Some of the same Republicans who have wielded the hot blade of racial divisiveness for years, are now calling Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court nominee, a racist. Oh, the hypocrisy!
Fund-Raising Still Has Its Perks in the Obama Era
Mr. Susman, a retired investment banker, earned the London posting not through diplomatic service but by collecting big checks for Mr. Obama’s campaign. Charles H. Rivkin, an entertainment mogul who once headed the company that created the Muppets, is heading to Paris for the same reason.
[…]
For a candidate who made grand promises to bring change to a capital where power and position are greased by money, the latest selections are a reminder that there are limits to just how much change the new president intends to bring.
Obama’s Itinerary Irks German Government
The relationship between the charismatic US president and Germany’s no-nonsense chancellor has been marked by tension since Barack Obama’s visit to Berlin as a presidential candidate last year. Differences over Obama’s itinerary in Germany suggest his ties with Angela Merkel remain awkward
Ted Kennedy reemerges in health care debate
Kennedy Health Plan Would Include Public Insurance
Senator Edward Kennedy, chairman of a Senate panel drafting a health-care overhaul, is circulating a plan that would require everyone to have insurance and would create a government program to compete with private insurers, said people familiar with the plan.
Health care activists lament single-payer snub
Frustrated by the exclusion of government-financed medical care from the debate to revamp the nation’s troubled health system, advocates of a “single-payer” plan are increasingly turning to demonstrations and civil disobedience as a way to get their message across.
Don’t be fooled on health care; real reform is what’s needed
Bankruptcy looms for GM; Chrysler awaits fate
U.S. Hopes To Recoup GM Outlay In 5 Years
Congress’s Afterthought, Wall Street’s Trillion Dollars
Commentary: My answer to being slimed on Huffington Post
Race questions over New York ‘cop-on-cop’ shooting of Omar J. Edwards
A black policeman in plain-clothes was shot dead by a white officer in New York last night after he was apparently mistaken for a criminal.
Omar J. Edwards, 25, was returning to his car after a shift at Harlem police station when he saw a stranger rummaging in his car. As he tried to apprehend the suspect, he was shot at six times by a colleague.
‘They killed my son’: family grieves loss of Omar Edwards, black cop shot by white officer
Another Leftist, Al Qaeda-loving, week-on-terror communist chimes in:
US violated Geneva Conventions, Bush Iraq commander says (h/t Dr BostonBoomer)
The head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, said Friday that the US had violated the Geneva Conventions in a stunning admission from President Bush’s onetime top general in Iraq that the US may have violated international law.
U.S. Soldier and 11 Iraqis Die in Attacks
Al-Qaeda spreads its tentacles
Military retakes largest town in Swat Valley
Good cop, bad cop: President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Revealed: the best protection against cancer
Boosting levels of vitamin D could cut the incidence of breast cancer by a quarter, bowel cancer by a third and it should be offered to the population as part of a public health drive, scientists say.
The finding is based on a review of 2,750 research studies involving vitamin D, sometimes called “bottled sunshine”, which show that taking daily supplements of the vitamin could do more for cancer prevention than a library full of lifestyle advice.
Man accuses woman of cheating him of sex
A Swedish man complained to police after a woman he lent money for a car refused to honor her promise to have sex with him
WTF?
A Florida Epidemic: Female Teachers Sleeping with Their Students
Our own Stateofdisbelief has the 2 best stories of the week:
Father, 29, in child support court says he has 21 kids
Woman Voter has the video:
“Pulling Out” Rivals Condoms, Study Says
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
Where is everyone this morning? Slurping coffee and reading with one bloodshot eye?
Well, if I don’t get coffee…I can’t get going and I am late as it is today. 😦
Lindsay Graham cried like a “little bitch”
Please take that out of your post.
Should I put “cried like a little Democrat”?
its offensive…. please take it out of your post.
Really? So bad? I’m really 50/50 about it.
does someone REALLY have to explain it to you.
I’ve asked you nicely and your responses are snide, at best, or willfully obstinate.
Is it your intention to be offensive?
Relax
yeah, please take it out
Hmmm, I think we all recognize that Lindsay Graham is still in the closet- officially. But I too am perturbed by the phrase “little bitch”. It’s derogatory. It would be like calling him a pansy, which he may be and there’s nothing wrong with that except that he’s a hypocrite.
I tend to shy away from those cultural stereotypes that depict gay men or men who do not conform to societal standards as being feminine. I mean, it’s kind of insulting to us females, doncha think? To me, there’s nothing wrong with being a bitch except that now Lindsay Graham is presumed to be cutting in on our action. He’s not a bitch. He’s just pathetic. But let’s not ascribe positive female characteristics to him. It’s just not fair to the bitches.
Thank you RD.
Good points.
I see all your points and I actually conceded. Here was my reply to indigo’s comment and I meant it:
I wasn’t sure if some would just see the expression as offensive and if they did I would remove it, which I did.
I don’t know why the whole thing got so badly outta hand.
Sorry I lost us a commenter.
It happens. We all have hair trigger tempers and lack the vital policeman that most people have between their brains and their fingers. It is the nature of blogging. The question is, can we learn? The learning curve is steep and there is a lot of backsliding.
Still, we have to keep trying. We get there eventually.
BTW:
I wasn’t even thinking about Lindsay Graham’s rumored sexuality, not in the least. It wasn’t anywhere near my mind.
I really remembered the spectacle those guys made during Alito’s confirmation, with Lindsay Graham crying over some false accusation he himself made. Add to that the fact that Republicans thinks of themselves as tough guys and crying is not for “real men”.
I put the expression in quotes for that matter.
Sotomayer is going to end up under the bus, I think.
(and yes, get rid of the “cried like a little b…” – I’m so tired of that word)
Man, the more I read about her, the more baggage I find – Lord knows I’m not in favor of putting another white male on the bench but just yesterday I was the victim of obvious reverse racism, so perhaps I’m a bit sensitive – I’m really not thrilled with her past responses to abortion. Is she really the only one we have? She seems to be a rep in dem clothing.
It would be different if Sotomayor had something like Sandra D. O’Connor – >>>>“I bring to the court the perspective of a woman primarily in a sense that I am female, just as I am white, a college graduate, etc.
“Yes, I will bring the understanding of a woman to the court, but I doubt that that alone will affect my decisions,
Instead – Sotomayor said she would come to a better conclusion THAN a white male.
he need to put the reps in a box & try & pick up the women’s vote & Hispanic votes the he did not ask her where she stood on the abortion issue. and i seems its still a mystery where she stands on that & other key issues . i think a lot of people seeing that she was Hispanic would think that she would be more sympathetic towards there issues. but i seems that in the past she has gone just the opposite way
Clue number one…she got a divorce, so she isn’t going to suffer because someone said it was the good girl thing to do.
General Petraeus says U.S. committed war crimes.
I was under the impression that “those guys” thought the Geneva Convention was quaint. I wonder if now they might be looking to license the Patraeus/Betray Us material.
relax.
this morning’s equivalent to STFU and get over it.
No it’s not.
I changed it after your 2nd demand. How can you say I’m asking you to “STFU and get over it”?
I don’t like people suggesting that I’m gratuitously out to offend them.
I did not demand. I asked nicely, twice.
Your responses were such that you feel that what you’ve written is no big deal or not offensive, and then you snarkily changed the phrase and told me to “relax.” Your attitude so far has been dismissive and demeaning. It’s disturbing that as a front page poster you would write that phrase in your post seemingly thinking you are funny…. then be defensive about it.
I had the feeling you were demanding and reacted accordingly.
I didn’t “snarkily” changed the phrase. I didn’t quickly find an adequate (non offensive) expression about Lindsay Graham’s whining during Alito’s confirmation.
I don’t have to change ANY wording in my post if I don’t feel like it. I said it was 50/50 and it was.
Yeah, “like a little b—” is misogynist, and mablue’s response is sexist .
mablue should apologize to you.
mablue’s responses speak volumes.
I will not be expecting any apology, but this poster should be apologizing not just to me but to every one who reads this blog.
Apologize to everyone who reads this blog?
if it turns out that she turn out more like a bush rep in her views & big pro life activist & her views are just the opposite of everything that most of us her hold dear & true . do you still think that she would be such a great pick..
not everything is at it seems
Well, without more context to the statement, it does come off a little racist at worst, but offensive at best. What does latina vs. white have to do with anything? And no, i’m not an obama supporter, i’m a proud puma who fought for hillary for a full year.
Since she didn’t say what she rightfully said in a vacuum, why would Robert Gibbs say “I think she’d say that her word choice in 2001 was poor.”?
Some RW colwn, takes her out of context and she gets blame for expressing herself poorly?
As I recall from something I read, I believe the question she was asked included white male vs. hispanic female. Or, something to the effect of why her view would be better than that of a white male.
I went to check the origin of the statement:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Republicans kept the pressure on the president’s Supreme Court pick Friday, pushing the idea that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is an activist judge who will bring a leftist agenda to the bench.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor in the White House with Vice President Joseph Biden and President Obama.
1 of 2 Meanwhile, the White House tried to soften remarks Sotomayor made in 2001 that have rankled conservatives, who say her assertion that her experiences as a Latina woman might make her judgments more sound than those of a white man brands her as a racist.
“I’m sure she would have restated it, but if you look at the entire sweep of the essay she wrote, what’s clear is that she was simply saying that her life experiences will give her information about the struggles and hardships that people are going through that will make her a good judge,” President Obama said in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams.
Sotomayor, a U.S. District Court judge who would be the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court if she is confirmed, spoke on her reflections as a Latina judge during a 2001 speech at the University of California-Berkeley Law School.
Different perspectives brought on by individual experiences, she said, create a “diversity of opinion” even within groups, and those perspectives will especially differ from the majority in a white male-dominated society.
Pointing out that studies show “women and people of color … report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race has shaped their careers,” Sotomayor said that the idea of “impartiality is an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.”
Thus, she said — in the remarks that have offended conservatives — “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.”
“Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice [Benjamin] Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society,” she said. “Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case.”
now, again, this is not in perfect context, but to a person not having had that experience, the white male she is speaking about, it IS very hard for them to understand, so they take as as racist, esp when she uses a word like “better”.
When we would refuse to eat what mom sat before us at the dinner table she would berate us with that old “millions of kids in China” saw.
Being smart asses we would shoot back with “name two”
When ever I see an article that begins with “Some Democrats ..” the BS detector goes off. I translate it as “I, the writer of this article think …”
I sassed my mom at the dinner table and ended up eating a knuckle sandwich.
My mom’s worst punshments were the “silent treatment” and the “guilt trip.”
Mine, too. She was a travel agent for guilt trips, may she rest in peace. My aunts, also. My cousins and I used to look at each other and say “pack your bags, we’re going on another guilt trip”. Silence with sighs, hand wringing and the odd sniffle.
LOL!
OMG, BB, our mother’s must be related. Guilt was areally a big teaching tool in the upper Midwest in the 50’s and 60’s. She’s 90 and still sneaks in now and then.
Yeah, my mom can still do it, although she’s grown a lot over the years. I always found the silent treatment to be even worse.
When my eldest informed me that she was getting married (while doing her Master’s program), I went stealth silent for a year or so. I broke off the silent treatment at her graduation, but went silent again when I learned she declined an opportunity that only a select few get.
I am glad to see you are all very smart and you hold no grudges against your dear Ole moms.
I have never spanked any of my children. Silence seems to do the trick for me. 😯
My mom used to say “Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver”
My mom used the “because I said so” . But she’d let us grouse about food we didn’t like (liver, spinich, and Dinty Moore Beef Stew were hated by all three of us kids.) When we got older and made our own suppers during the week and mom just cooked supper on the weekends, she’d just fix something we all liked- mostly pasta related meals and chilli.
Funny, guilt doesn’t seem to work on the current generation of young people. There are a whole lot of “so whatters” out there — our own lil’ isis and regencyg excepted.
My mom never heard of Dr. Spock and she believed that “child-rearing” meant programming the amygdala by applying stimulation to the buttocks (or whatever body part was within reach) with a belt, switch, flyswatter or blunt object.
“I brought you into this world and I’ll take you out!”
My dad’s favorite was
“I brought you into this world and I can take you out and make another one just like you.”
That was my aunt’s favorite. It stopped the day I handed her my plate with the remnants of my grandmother’s horrible Thanksgiving dinner–the woman couldn’t boil water–and asked her sweetly to make sure that the children in China received it.
ma blue can you delete this too?
(is that ok indigogrrl?)
thanks in advance.
Russ Limbaugh should be charged with inciting hate and be charged accordingly.
The First Amendment is to be honored, not used as a barf bag to throw up malicious and abusive attacks that incite particularly over the airwaves.
A complaint can be filed with the FCC, Profane, Indecent Profane.
Instructions on filing: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/decdoc/public_and_broadcasting.pdf
Someone has to step up and try to stop some of this filth from both Republicans and Democrats.
mablue – it should be “gouge” not “gauge” in this sentence: “I was about to gauge my own eyeballs out. ”
/spelling nazi
Thanks for all the links. I was particularly appalled at the cop shooting story.
Oh thanks!
Today is clearly not my day.
This too shall pass, MABlue. I horribly misspelled all my twitter updates this morning and I can’t correct them.
It happens sometimes. Hey, thanks for finding all of this so we don’t have to!
JJM
That’s ok…I mis-spelled G.Gordon Liddy as G. Gordon “Limpy” last night. Honest! it was an honest mistake!! 😉
How about “squealed like a stuck pig?”
mablue,
It’s easy for parties on either end of an “expression” to forget how they are tied to localization in space, time, and particular at the moment circumstance. It’s hard, but we should all try to give each other the benefit of the doubt, inasmuch as we tend to be on the same side of things.
s
s
Oh, and thank you for your yeoperson’s work in providing the hearty breakfasts. 🙂
Point very well taken.
Axiom – A Little Ray of Sunshine (NWS9 “Move” 1970)
mablue2,
I miss ya when you are not around and as a newspaper reader it means the world to me, to see that someone cares enough to get the ‘vital’ information to the starving masses like me.
{{{hug}}}
Thanks.
I really do this so we ca have all kinds of stuff to talk about here: the serious, the serious, the funny, the bizarre.
This is OT but just saw a preview promo for the remake of my favourite Sci-fi alien series V. The dialog is so different but that is not the point. It seems there are echoing Obama.
Embracing Change is never easy – Mr. Change never stopped using that word.
The world is in bad shape father, who wouldn’t welcome a saviour right now? – Many people saw Obama as a messiah.
“they say that you two are obsessed with the V’s”
— “You know what? The V’s, they call it spreading hope”>
How many Obama supposers were obssessed with him last primary. They did everything for him including spitting in people’s faces that did not support their messiah. Mr. Hope spread hope everywhere and his supporters refused to see him for the fraud he was.
they are arming themselves with the most powerful weapon out there” —- Devotion
Mr. Hope used that devotion from his supporters and media to do whatever he wanted knowing that no one would hold him accountable. No one wanted to know his negatives.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/TapscottsCopyDesk/White-House-moves-to-restrict-criticism-of-stimulus-projects–46540777.html
There are no surprises with this guy. Then, for me, the surprise would have been him being a real democrat and fixing the things that were broken over the past 8 years.
My two favorite, and possibly related, articles of the week:
Father, 29, has 21 children and a minimum wage job
http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/45871127.html
Do we need to send him this article:
Pulling out is better than using a condom
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/28/health/main5045514.shtml?tag=topHome;topStories
Holy Hemiola! That guy has a future as an ovulation inducer. He could be raking in the bucks.
It doesn’t sound like he has time for a job.
I am sorry forwriting this but WTH were those women thinking? They had kids with this guy knowing fully well that he could not support them and already had more than 10 children. Seriously, if a guy like this says he has no child support, I don’t think he needs to be put in jail. He seems like a good father and probably would pay if he had the money. These women should wake the hell up. Why did they decide to have children with this man? I am not blaming the women but what were they thinking?
This man is also an idiot. He is only 29 and already has 21 children he can not care for. How many will he have by the time he reaches 40?
Perhaps he’s the reincarnation of King Saud.
These women don’t think and probably never have. Where I live there are always any number of young women pregnant and blushingly excited about it. It makes no difference to them because my state and county are going to pick up the tab for them and their child. Payments are high when there’s no father to be found.
This burns me to no end. Why? I’ve had RA since I was 17. When my ex and I were really struggling, he was trying to go to college and I was severely ill, there was no help for us, once we answered none to the magic question “how many children do you have.” So I skipped going on disability as my dr. wanted and went to work, on my swollen ankles and feet that were screaming in pain. With fingers that looked like hotdogs and wrists twice their normal size. I was to damn stubborn to quit and I worked like that for 30 + years.
My point is I do (speaking for me only) blame the women who are willfully ignorant, careless and in some cases just plain stupid.
While my tax dollars went to support women like this I lost my chance at having children just when I started to seriously think about it. I taxed my immune system to the point that I went into premature menopause at 31. But before that you better believe I was faithful with birth control. I knew I could hardly take care of myself after the divorce, let alone put a child through that hell. There wasn’t enough government money in the world to make that choice.
My reasons for blaming them are unique and highly personal and are not an effort to turn blame into a cause.
I’m just tired of the victimhood of personal choices.
My longest rant ever and I’d better go back to lurking. Pls. excuse typo’s etc.
Once you start commenting you can’t go back to lurking. Blogging Ordinance 06-5595.1(b)
(I think the spelling nazis are gone for now)
Thanks myiq for saving my butt. I thought and may have killed the thread and I think that is right below blogstalking in behavior. It’s hard to remember where the anger hides, especially when you think it’s all burned out.
XXOO
Little Isis used to think she had leprosy or something. Several times she’d show up just as everyone was leaving and it looked like she was a serial threadkiller.
shows what I know…I thought the “pulling out” article would get more juice.
(myiq — get your mind out of the gutter on that comment)
Why? Did yours want to float by?
👿
SOD: You really did put up 2 great articles. In keeping with the gutter theme I then came in and crapped all over them with TMI. I have steroid brain, and it flattens the senses sometimes or makes me foam at the mouth. Messy and unsightly.
Hell, I chewed out a Walmart greeter the other day. Not to worry, not the sweet little old lady kind. The ones that just want to kiss you as she did me. He was probably retired military from the local base, big strapping guy.
He was without words when I told him I didn’t think that finding a scooter for my 90 year old mother could possibly be the biggest problem he’d ever had to solve in his entire life. Aren’t Walmart greeters supposed to say something other than “I don’t know” 6 times?
Oh uffda, now I really have to STFU, I just told the world I shop at Walmart rather than Target. Yes, if you give me the shovel that’s a perfect fit, I just keep digging.
That’s ok G-cat!
Or perhaps he was endowed with a heightened sense of pheromone (sp?) identification.
Father, 29, in child support court says he has 21 kids!
Here is Mr. Irresponsible who hasn’t gotten a vasectomy and so the ones paying the ‘Child Support’ are the tax payers of Tennessee. OUCH!
A question here about Universal Healthcare, if a person is covered by government ran healthcare, and wants to sue their doctor, do they sue the doctor or the government?
I’ll happily trade limits on malpractice awards in exchange for UHC.
If the government was subsidizing malpractice coverage then they would have an incentive to get rid of hacks and quacks.
It really depends on how you define “government-run.” — laws governing “non-profit” private enterprise and your abilities to sue are probably the best resource for explaining this — and maybe within that context, myiq2xu would have more insight.
Here is an excellent comparison chart of how different systems would and do function:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1515
and an excellent research and analysis on cost sharing configurations in 3 nations: France, Germany, and Switzerland.
Click to access 7852.pdf
Update re SOD’s post on Ted Rall:
Ted’s “Obama should resign” post is at the top of Memeorandum, but no lefty site is linked to, just a few wingnuts.
As usual – all quiet on the Kool-aid front.
They’re too busy soaking their brooms in lighter fluid for the torch-carrying ambush they will implement to ensure he is swiftly shoved under the moving bus.
BTW, somebody (I think jjtcoma) inquired about Rall’s kool-aid propensities back on that thread.
anyone interested can go back to the thread where I linked some of his more offensive attacks on Palin.
Thanks again SoD… I actually am not that interested any more – I can only take so much. I was just curious if the guy had a complete about-face. Looks like it was a ‘tepid’ obama support or some such BS that doesn’t actually stand for much in my book!
Yeah…Rall was more of the post primary “Palin is a trailor-trash wearer of scarey lady parts” kool-aid ilk.
A good article in NYT
The mellowing of William Jefferson Clinton.
It actually gets several republican operatives to admit all those Clinton “scandals” were just made up lies!
It even addresses the ra c*st claims made against him last year with those who led the pack actually apologizing.
I’ll probably re-lintk to that story tomorrow.
Because we here at TC are way ahead in the news, we had that story 2 or 3 days ago: “The Life of Bill Clinton as FPOTUS”
http://tinyurl.com/nvmdo3
moderation
Attacks on Indians not racist: Australia
Aren’t Walmart greeters supposed to say something other than “I don’t know” 6 times?
“Welcome to Walmart. Get your shit and get out”
That’s why I’m pretty sure he wasn’t born here. He couldn’t do “Minnesota Nice”!. I, on the other hand, don’t do it by choice. Well I can fake it like Marge in the movie Fargo if needed, but I lived away from the area for 20 years and got over it!
Heh
When i joined Walmart I thought how bad could it be? The Walmart bureaucracy makes the military bureaucracy folk look like rocket scientists. My masochistic streak reached its limit after 3 fun filled years.
I was unsurprised when they got sued for discrimination, the arbitrary way in which they assigned pay rather than quantitively was bound to catch up with them at one point or another.
It only took Lee Scott 5 years to figure out that it was in the companies best interest to raise minimum wage(uh they are the people most likely to shop at your stores Lee) and another year for him to realize that passing healthcare responsibility onto the government would make that pesky problem where he gets hammered for sloughing off his employees healthcare unto the backs of state go away. They are blooming geniuses.