Who is Sonia Sotomayor?

Who is Judge Sonia Sotomayor?

Yesterday, President Obama nominated his choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. We thought it would be nice for you to get to know her BEFORE the Republicans launch their predictable smear campaign against her.

1. Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the bench than any Supreme Court justice in 100 years. Over her three-decade career, she has served in a wide variety of legal roles, including as a prosecutor, litigator, and judge.

2. Judge Sotomayor is a trailblazer. She was the first Latina to serve on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was the youngest member of the court when appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York. If confirmed, she will be the first Hispanic to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

3. While on the bench, Judge Sotomayor has consistently protected the rights of working Americans, ruling in favor of health benefits and fair wages for workers in several cases.

4. Judge Sotomayor has shown strong support for First Amendment rights, including in cases of religious expression and the rights to assembly and free speech.

5. Judge Sotomayor has a strong record on civil rights cases, ruling for plaintiffs who had been discriminated against based on disability, sex and race.

6. Judge Sotomayor embodies the American dream. Born to Puerto Rican parents, she grew up in a South Bronx housing project and was raised from age nine by a single mother, excelling in school and working her way to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton University, and to become an editor of the Law Journal at Yale Law School.

7. In 1995, Judge Sotomayor "saved baseball" when she stopped the owners from illegally changing their bargaining agreement with the players, thereby ending the longest professional sports walk-out in history.

8. Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of the environment in a case of protecting aquatic life in the vicinity of power plants in 2007, a decision that was overturned by the Roberts Supreme Court.

9. In 1992, Judge Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate without opposition after being appointed to the bench by George H.W. Bush.

10. Judge Sotomayor is a widely respected legal figure, having been described as "...an outstanding colleague with a keen legal mind," "highly qualified for any position in which wisdom, intelligence, collegiality and good character would be assets," and "a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity." Judge Sotomayor is an historic, uniquely qualified nominee to the Supreme Court. Let's make sure we get a prompt, fair confirmation on her nomination.

Sources: 1. White House Statement, May 26, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51451&id=16226-8445154-lNb2eux&t=1

2. White House Statement, May 26, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51451&id=16226-8445154-lNb2eux&t=2

3. Cases: Archie v. Grand Cent. Partnership, 997 F. Supp. 504 (S.D.N.Y. 1998) and Marcella v. Capital Dist. Physicians' Health Plan, Inc., 293 F.3d 42 (2d Cir. 2002).

4. Cases: Flamer v. White Plains, 841 F. Supp. 1365 (S.D.N.Y. 1993), Ford v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 382 (2d Cir. 2003), and Campos v. Coughlin, 854 F. Supp. 194 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).

5a. "Sotomayor's Notable Court Opinions and Articles," The New York Times, May 26, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51454&id=16226-8445154-lNb2eux&t=3

5b. Cases: Bartlett v. N.Y. State Board, 970 F. Supp. 1094 (S.D.N.Y. 1997), Greenbaum v. Svenska Hendelsbanken, 67 F.Supp.2d 228 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), Raniola v. Bratton, 243 F.3d 610 (2d Cir. 2001), and Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education, 195 F.3d 134 (2d Cir. 1999).

6. "Sonia Sotomayor: 10 Things You Should Know," The Huffington Post, May 26, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51452&id=16226-8445154-lNb2eux&t=4

7. "How Sotomayor 'Saved' Baseball," Time, May 26, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51455&id=16226-8445154-lNb2eux&t=5

8. "Sotomayor's resume, record on notable cases," CNN, May 26, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51453&id=16226-8445154-lNb2eux&t=6

9. "Sotomayor's resume, record on notable cases," CNN, May 26, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51453&id=16226-8445154-lNb2eux&t=7

10a. Judge Richard C. Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee to the Second Circuit. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51451&id=16226-8445154-lNb2eux&t=8

10b. "Sotomayor is Highly Qualified," The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2009. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51456&id=16226-8445154-lNb2eux&t=9 10c. Honorary Degree Citation, Pace University School of Law, 2003 Commencement










Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

The Days of Your Friendly Neighborhood Cop are Over

Lately you can't find a day that goes by without watching another violent police beating of a civilian. Our local police look more and more like the military, and harsh treatment is becoming the rule, instead of the exception. Here's a video of a police chase that ends with the suspect's vehicle being overturned and the suspect being thrown clear and lying unconscious by the side of the road. Watch the heroic actions of the police as they take this dangerous unconscious suspect into custody. Thankfully, five of them have been fired.


















Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

Cheney Ran Secret CIA Assassination Squad

The Godfather - Murder, Incorporated

This may be the final straw for those on the fence as to whether or not to prosecute George Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes. Dick Cheney assumed the role of Godfather and led an unregulated or supervised HIT SQUAD which violates both Federal and International law. This man should be tried, convicted and executed.

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The remark came out seemingly inadvertently when Hersh was asked by the moderator of a public discussion of "America's Constitutional Crisis" whether abuses of executive power, like those which occurred under Richard Nixon, continue to this day.

Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."

Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations: the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it."

"It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."

Hersh told MinnPost.com blogger Eric Black in an email exchange after the event that the subject was "not something I wanted to dwell about in public." He is looking into it for a book, but he believes it may be a year or two before he has enough evidence "for even the most skeptical."

Eric Black's blog posting, which includes an hour-long audio recording of the full University of Minnesota colloquy, is available here.

















Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

Blacks Pulled Over and Robbed by Texas Cops

Tehana, Texas

This is really one for the books. 

March 11, 2009

Reporting from Tenaha, Texas -- You can drive into this dusty fleck of a town near the Texas-Louisiana state line if you're African American, but you might not be able to drive out of it -- at least not with your car, your cash, your jewelry or other valuables. That's because the police here allegedly have found a way to strip motorists, many of them black, of their property without ever charging them with a crime. Instead they offer out-of-towners a grim choice: Sign over your belongings to the town, or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes.

More than 140 people reluctantly accepted that deal from June 2006 to June 2008, according to court records. Among them were a black grandmother from Akron, Ohio, who surrendered $4,000 in cash after Tenaha police pulled her over, and an interracial couple from Houston, who gave up more than $6,000 after police threatened to seize their children and put them into foster care, the court documents show. Neither the grandmother nor the couple were charged with or convicted of any crime.

Officials in Tenaha, along a heavily traveled state highway connecting Houston with several popular gambling destinations in Louisiana, say they are engaged in a battle against drug trafficking, and they call the search-and-seizure practice a legitimate use of the state's asset-forfeiture law. That law permits local police agencies to keep drug money and other property used in the commission of a crime and add the proceeds to their budgets. But civil rights lawyers call Tenaha's practice something else: highway robbery. The attorneys have filed a federal class-action lawsuit seeking unspecified damages and a halt to what they contend is an unconstitutional perversion of the law's intent, used primarily against African Americans who have done nothing wrong. Tenaha officials "have developed an illegal 'stop and seize' practice of targeting, stopping, detaining, searching, and often seizing property from apparently nonwhite citizens and those traveling with nonwhite citizens," asserts the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.

Partial to Minorities

David Guillory, an attorney in nearby Nacogdoches who filed the federal lawsuit, said he combed through Shelby County court records from 2006 to 2008 and discovered nearly 200 cases in which Tenaha police seized cash and property from motorists. In about 50 of the cases, suspects were charged with drug possession. But in 147 others, Guillory said the court records showed, the police seized cash, jewelry, cellphones and sometimes even automobiles from motorists but never found any contraband or charged them with any crime. Of those, Guillory said he managed to contact 40 of the motorists directly -- and discovered that all but one of them were black.

SOURCE: LA TIMES
By Howard Witt




















Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

Good Bye Old Friend -- A Moment in Time

"The Truth Shall Make You Free"

The year was 1965. I was attending City College of San Francisco and the occasion was our Athletic Awards dinner. It was an event where the members of the various sports teams received their individual and team awards at a dinner in which San Franciso 49ers Hall of Fame tackle Bob St. Clair was the featured speaker. The 6'9" 265 St. Clair entertained the throng, not only with his profound words in a deep, booming voice, but by eating his way through a 16 oz. raw steak, his trademark.

I had played my favorite sport, basketball, in high school, but this was college and my best sport, golf, had led me to this point, to the conference championship on a team that was truly exceptional, and several individual awards. It was a great moment and I sat just a couple of seats from my favorite football player at the time, the fabulous O.J. Simpson. We were young. We shared the same coach, former Olympic star and world record holder in the 440, Grover Klemmer, who presented each of our awards. It was exciting. It was a night to remember.

Unfortunately, O.J. would later have a couple of nights to remember that he would much rather forget. The first led to the deaths of Ron Goldman and Nicole Simpson. Another led to a botched robbery attempt that probably could be made into a movie in the vein of the Keystone Cops. Nobody is laughing this time. Is it karma? Who knows? Justice? Perhaps. Here is that moment:

OJ LED AWAY IN HANDCUFFS