Monthly Archives: July 2009

July 16, 2009 — John Hinderaker

And Now For Something Completely Crazy

The news is coming so thick and fast these days that it’s hard to keep up. The Supreme Court, socialized medicine, cap and trade, record deficits, foreign policy fecklessness–it’s easy to lose track of smaller issues with all that is going on. Still, H.R. 1018 shouldn’t be allowed to pass unnoticed. H.R. 1018 is the “Restore Our American Mustangs Act.” It can fairly be described as a welfare program for »
July 16, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

The great gesturer, Part Two

Judge Sotomayor has completed her appearance. The Committee is now hearing from panels of witnesses with views about the nominee. Two of the Ricci plaintiffs have testified, Ricci himself and the Hispanic plaintiff, Vargas. Linda Chavez has also testified. Lindsey Graham just finished questioning these witnesses. Graham asked Chavez whether Republican politicians sometimes put minority members in important positions in order to advance the party’s political purposes. The correct answer, »
July 16, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

Surely the Senate has the right to demand better than this

Roger Clegg reports that, under questioning by Senator Kyl about the Ricci case, Judge Sotomayor offered up a howler that raises serious questions about either her competence or her honesty. Specifically, Clegg reports that Sotomayor claimed it was difficult to tell whether all nine Justices rejected her position in Ricci because “there are a lot of opinions in that case.” What nonsense. First, the existence of multiple opinions doesn’t make »
July 16, 2009 — Scott Johnson

A New York state of mind

The New York Post reports that congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul would create a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for New York’s top earners. Myron Magnet also focuses on New York in an article on “The obsolete New York model.” Magnet notes: It’s worth recalling that when the Founding Fathers led the American colonists in revolt against British oppression, they weren’t rebelling against torture on the »
July 16, 2009 — Scott Johnson

How much damage did the Times do? part 3

I wrote about the Inspectors’ General unclassified report on the Bush administration’s terrorist eavesdropping program here and here. In my posts I concentrated on the part of the report (pages 31-36) that was highlighted by the New York Times regarding the program’s purported inefficacy. In another part of the report (pages 10-14), the Inspectors General are critical of then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo for approving the legality of the »
July 16, 2009 — Scott Johnson

Triumph of the will

In his post on President Obama throwing out the first pitch at the All Star game on Tuesday night in St. Louis, Paul noted the weird camera angle Fox used to show the pitch (video below). Andrew McCarthy directs interested readers to the video posted here (24 seconds in) to see the pitch from a conventional angle. McCarthy refers to Obama’s “spastic motion” throwing the pitch. The video is also »
July 16, 2009 — Scott Johnson

Paul Rahe: The road to soft despotism, part 1

Professor Paul Rahe continues his timely series of posts for us on democracy’s drift in America : Two weeks ago, I posted on Power Line a piece, contending that President Obama’s health care proposals presuppose the administrative state’s assuming a power over our lives and well-being that is nothing less than tyrannical, and tracing the argument for its assumption of such powers to the Progressives’ repudiation of the American founding. »
July 15, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

The Sotomayor hearings — where things stand

After three days of hearings, including two in which Judge Sotomayor was questioned, I think we can say the following: First, Sotomayor did not have the “meltdown,” that Lindsey Graham said, correctly, she would need to have in order not to be confirmed. Therefore, it’s almost certain that she will be confirmed. Second, Sotomayor was a competent but hardly stellar witness. Her ability cogently to answer questions fell well short »
July 15, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

They’re all wise Latinas now, Part Two

The National Journal, in an article by Neil Munro (not available online), examines the evidence on whether gender matters when it comes to judging appeals. Munro relies mainly on a peer-reviewed study by Christina Boyd, a Ph.D. candidate at Washington University in St. Louis who was recently hired by the political science department at SUNY Buffalo. Boyd examined a database of 1,275 appeals court cases decided between 1985 and 2002. »
July 15, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

One bounce Obama didn’t want

Those of you who watched the beginning of the All Star game last night will have noticed that, when President Obama threw the first pitch, the camera shot was a close-up that made it impossible to see whether his pitch was on target. I found this odd, and so did Andy McCarthy. I’ll make an educated guess that this was done at the insistence of the White House to prevent »
July 15, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

They’re all wise Latinas now

Judge Sotomayor spent a good portion of yesterday trying to explain away the passages in multiple speeches where she (1) embraced the idea that she sees facts differently by virtue of her life experiences as a Latina and (2) suggested that, by virtue of such life experiences, a wise Latina judge will make better decisions than a wise white male judge. Much of her testimony on this matter was simply »
July 15, 2009 — John Hinderaker

Sotomayor Overnight

Byron York writes that Republican aides don’t believe Sonia Sotomayor testified truthfully yesterday, especially, as we noted, on her “wise Latina” speech and her role in the far-left Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. They are preparing to follow up today. Byron also caught up with Pat Leahy to ask him why he misquoted the key paragraph of the “wise Latina” speech in his lead-off questioning of Sotomayor. Leahy’s »
July 14, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

The great gesturer

Why do so many Senators persist during judicial confirmation hearings in making speeches rather than asking questions? This bipartisan phenomenon plagued the Roberts and Alito hearings, and reared its head again today in the proceedings for Sotomayor. But why? Is it because Senators just like to talk or because they are afraid that the witness will get the better of them in a true question and answer format? Whatever the »
July 14, 2009 — John Hinderaker

Sotomayor, Day Two

Today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation was, as one might expect, a mixed bag. My sense was that the dialogue was at a little higher level than we sometimes see in that committee–less bloviation by the Senators, for one thing. Sotomayor came across as a likable figure, I thought–but that is based on reading the transcript, not watching on television. By her own account, she is single-mindedly »
July 14, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

Empathetic, moi?

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are making a major effort to show that empathy is no part of Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial decisionmaking. Senator Schumer, in particular, made this the centerpiece of his questioning. He flagged certain cases in which sympathetic litigants did not receive a favorable ruling from Sotomayor. One set of such litigants cited by Schumer was the Ricci plaintiffs, but that assumes Sotomayor had empathy for »
July 14, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

A teaching moment

We predicted that the Sotomayor confirmation hearings would provide some teaching moments. We were right, though the exchange below isn’t exactly what we had in mind: »
July 14, 2009 — Paul Mirengoff

Just the facts and the law, ma’am

I don’t think we’ve covered it, but the biggest story of the past few days may turn out to reports that Attorney General Holder is inclined to appoint a prosecutor to examine the actions of those who interrogated terrorists during the Bush administration. The Washington Post writes about this today in a story about how tough life is for Eric Holder. The Post’s report (by Carrie Johnson and Krissah Thompson) »