You'd have to stay reading this until the Fourth of July if I were to detail every crackpot utterance made by these people over the past few days. As in all cases like this, there are some which are so outrageous that they deserve repeating. Doing so convinces anyone with a clear head and a modicum of sensibility that the Republicans, namely the crazies who currently monopolize the party, are on a fast track to third party status. The Sotomayor matter is just another pathetic situation in which the right wingers find themselves. The vast majority of Americans have already pinned the economic crisis squarely on their over-inflated chests and letting Cheney, Limbaugh and Gingrich roll out into the spotlight has been nothing short of a disaster. Could we be witnessing the very early phases of persons like Colin Powell starting to wrestle back control of the party? Or will he and other moderate Republicans jump ship and become Democrats or, perhaps, sign up with the Independence Party so that in another decade that becomes the second major party in America.
Back to Sotomayor. Where to begin on all of the stupid comments made about her and the nomination is not easy. Just when we think we heard the dumbest (and most entertaining) comment possible, another one comes right behind it. And it's only three days since she was nominated!
OK, here goes:
Up until a couple of days ago, I never heard of Mark Krikorian who works for the right-wing Center for Immigration Studies. In a blog a couple of days ago, Krikorian bitched about the “unnatural pronunciation” of Sotomayor’s name. He said "deferring to people’s own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English."
As I said, I didn't know who Krikorian was. Now I do, thanks to his blatant ignorance.
Then there is Karl Rove, who said in referring to Sotomayor’s earning her undergraduate degree from Princeton and her J.D from the Yale Law School that he wasn't that impressed because "I know some rather dumb people who went to Ivy League schools." No shit, Sherlock! You must be referring to the dumb-ass you worked for when he was Governor of Texas and then the President of the United States!!
Speaking of the Ivies, several conservatives tied her attending Princeton and Yale to getting an education at two of the citadels of liberalism. Hmm, that's interesting. There's this guy named Samuel Alito (I think he presently sits on the Supreme Court and is viewed as a conservative jurist) and if I remember correctly, he is an alum of Princeton and Yale Law School. Oh well, never let those things get in the way of good ol' mud slinging.
Then there is our old, dumb-as-a-bag-of-hair friend, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma.) Just to make certain he wasn't left out when it came to idiotic Republican reactions to the nomination, he sent out a statement indicating he feared that Judge Sotomayor would be unable to prove her legal decisions have not been based upon her race and gender. Inhofe said the Senate will "weigh her qualifications and character as well as her ability to rule fairly without undo influence from her own race or gender."
Let's return to Justice Alito. Back in 2006 during his confirmation hearing he remarked, "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."
OK, enough of that. If you can't hang her on where she went to school and on her referencing of her ethnic makeup and that' she's a woman, how about that she is a racist.
Who better to make that charge than former U. S. Congressman Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado. This schmuck made a career whining about immigration (by Hispanics, not Europeans or people fleeing the Muslim Mideast.) It turns out Sotomayor is a member of the National Council of La Raza, a l national organization that is "the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States." Appearing on CNN to lambaste Sotomayor for belonging to a group whose name would translate as "The Race," Tancredo made the false claim that La Raza has the motto, "All for the race, nothing for the rest," and bashed it as being "a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses."
To add to the piling on, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) accused her of belonging to "a racist organization called 'The Race.'" Said ALIPAC president William Gheen: "The US Supreme Court is no place for brown or Hispanic supremacists like Sonia Sotomayor."
Damn right! Only white, male supremacists can sit on our Supreme Court!
All this reminds me of something Harry Truman once said:
"I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here."
Enough of all this nastiness. Let's turn to something more serene, gentle and pure....like Stormy Daniels' candidacy for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana. A week ago Thursday, she announced the formation of an exploratory committee to look into the possibility of her running against
"Diaper Dave" Vitter, the hooker-loving incumbent.
An exploratory committee is always a sign someone is serious. Heretofore, Stormy, when she wasn't performing exotic dances at some of the more popular clubs in Louisiana, was simply on "a listening tour." The step from a listening tour to an exploratory committee means things could get really interesting.
I hope by next week to have more details to post. In fact, I am going to push for some direct quotes from Stormy herself. After all, I am the self-appointed chair of Minnesotans for Stormy.
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