"ruled that the New Haven fire department acted constitutionally when it promoted black firefighters who scored lower than their white counterparts"

No one was promoted. The entire test was thrown out,

They should ask Sotomayor the same question the Chief Justice asked the Obama Administration's Solicitor General about the Ricci case:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: So, can you assure me that the government's position would be the same if this test—black applicants—firefighters scored highest on this test in disproportionate numbers, and the City said we don't like that result, we think there should be more whites on the fire department, and so we're going to throw the test out? The government of United States would adopt the same position?"

I'll post the same thing I did over at TPM on Kirsanow.

The right loves him since he is a African American Russian Jew who says things like this. Plus he has that evil villain mustache.

He is an attorney, like me, here in Cleveland, Ohio and when he came back from his stint in the Bush administration his firm ran a welcome back ad in the bar journal with his picture, and what do you know pretty soon a photoshoped version is making the rounds by e-mail making fun of his mustache.

Steve - your pull quote from The Hill's Blog has changed. Check the link, and you'll notice the info about hiring unqualified black firefighters is gone and now in a more diluted construction. If the Hill's Blog did infact submit the first quote, whomever authored it should be immediately fired for not providing the whole story in an accurate fashion. No black firefighters were hired. As coral above notes, the test results were thrown out, not disregarded to promote anyone!

If your first pull quote is accurate, the people who are suppose to be in the know seem to be playing politics instead of reporting germane issues for us readers! -Kevo

And Nixon's Southern Strategy continues to pay dividends.

and the chair wouldn't rule Ricci and friend non-germane why, exactly? Sotomayor was not their trial judge, so they have no first hand experience with her demenaor or treatment of those appearing before her. They are not lawyers or legal or constitutional scholars or historians. They do not have some account of scandalous personal behavior on the Judge's part.

so what relevant information to determining if a Supreme Court nominee is qualified do they bring? that they have opinions? me, too - where do I sign up to testify in front of Congress on a daily basis? tell 'em to go post on a blog if they want to rant - that's what I have to do! :)

The Republican plan is to delay the approval of this judge so the supreme court can rule on political campaign donations of corporations go without oversight or limit.the supreme court delayed this decision until September and after Souter left as he was greatly opposed to this practice. The Republican politicized Supreme court reigns lead by Roberts who professed equality and balance and lied to americans at his confirmation. That is probably why the Republicans do not want to approve of Sotomayor until September and will use delay tactics. The supreme court plan is to rule in favor of tthe with 8 members on the court and a 5-3 decision for the corporations to have unlimited buying power of the senators and representatives and presidential candidates.It is reported the 2Billion dollars spent for OBAMA's/McCain election
Wioll be small change with the corporations donation going unchecked.

These clowns don't get it. The only thing people will care about is who the nominee answers questions. She will do a solid job for certain and will able to defend all of her votes as wholly consistent with her constitutional duties. Once she explains why she felt compelled by historical precedent to rule the way she did in Ricci, it is game over. She will say that the decisions of other judges over time and not me required the outcome. They will ask if she agreed with the decision and she will say that until the Supreme Court CHANGED the precedent she made the right decision.

These guys are hoping that she starts speaking in some vulgarized "chicano" accent. This woman is a vanilla judge whose positions are being opposed because (the argument goes) they flow from her gender and ethnicity. So, were she a white male those same decisions would not be in play.

When they attack the next nominee -- bet on another non-caucasion -- the GOP will kill itself with the younger and more tolerant generation. Good luck with that "fellas."

eric

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: So, can you assure me that the government's position would be the same if this test—black applicants—firefighters scored highest on this test in disproportionate numbers, and the City said we don't like that result, we think there should be more whites on the fire department, and so we're going to throw the test out? The government of United States would adopt the same position?"

I can't help wondering what alternate reality you live in where whites are routinely denied promotions and jobs because of their skin color. Maybe that Philadelphia country club that refused to let black kids in their pool even though the kids had paid $1,900 to the country club to use it were just reacting to the historical discrimination whites have experienced at the hands of black people?

But I'm sure you'll come up with some pseudo-scientific claim that letting black kids swim in a pool really does contaminate it forever or that white ex-convicts are always a better hiring choice than black men who have no prison record. You always do, especially when the facts are against you.

I'm wanting to agree with Coral about the lawsuit and outcome of the NEW HAVEN test...my understanding was that she (and the others on panel) backed up the city in throwing out the test. Now, if they then promoted black firefighters over white firefighters who HAD scored higher on the test that was thrown out...that would have been a different matter, I believe. AT ANY RATE a typical grandstanding play by the never surprising REPUGS!!!

BTW...accuracy in the blogs becomes even more important daily because I'm noticing that despite the constant deriding of BLOGGERS by some of the overpaid puffery pundits/commentators...many if not most are constructing their "programs" around what is found online in the blogs THAT DAY!!!! Weird, non?

The only way to stop the GOP from pulling these stunts is to heap enormous pain in the form of humiliation and scorn. Someone needs to take this "issue" and beat them over the head with it.

When (or if) they realize that they are looking like the total fucking idiots they are, they just may not do it again.

The time for granting these morons any respect has long passed.

For the last time Sotomayor did not make the ruling in Ricci. She was part of the MAGRORITY on a appeals court decision. She joined with her colleagues in making the decision.

I'm okay if Sessions wants to keep demonstrating that the GOP is nothing but a bunch of racists. This inanity certainly won't prevent her from being confirmed.

Ricci was the lead plaintiff in Ricci v. New Haven, the controversial case in which Sotomayor ruled the New Haven fire department acted constitutionally when it promoted black firefighters who scored lower than their white counterparts on a qualifying test.

What coral said at #1. Good Ford, just because movement conservatives keep complaining about this "affirmative action" case -- which it isn't -- the so-called "liberal media" adopts the right wing narrative so thoroughly that it misrepresents the basic facts.

Good, if there are any Hispanics stupid enough to think about voting GOP this non-sense should set them straight. They think they are so slick, yet can't seem to figure out how they lost the majority in record time.

Even dumb ass Bush knew a Hispanic vote was equal to a white vote. He understood that you can placate a demographic, you don't have to even help them, just don't write them off. It's like the GOP thinks Hispanics are going to magically disappear at election time. I love that they have absolutely no idea how devastating this is going to be in the long run.

For all their hatred of facts, this is one fact I am glad they are ignoring, that while people are going to be the minority and that Hispanics will be the majority. So I hope they take ever nasty cheap shot they can because Hispanics are paying attention and I would love nothing more then to see my state, Texas, rid itself of the GOP, one Hispanic at a time.

If I were on the committee, I would tell the firefighters that only an idiot would have asked them to be witnesses if they aren't experts on constitutional law; that the presumption is that the gentleman from the other side isn't an idiot. Then I'd spend my 5 minutes asking them about precedent, stare decisis, etc. And I would ask them why they're wasting the comittee's time if they can't answer because, obviously, the gentleman from the other side wouldn't be the one wasting the comittee's time.

The issue in this posting is how outrageous it is for the Republicans to have the litigants of a case come to express their opinions about a judge's nomination. It's especially outrageous given that (1) Sotomayor was merely one judge on a panel, and she was siding with the majority;
(2) Her position was the "conservative" position in that she (and the majority) were merely upholding established precedent. Apparently the rightwingers think this is outrageous, and that she should have legislated from the bench to overrule established precedent.
(3) It was an APPEALS case. The litigants might have attended court during oral arguments, but they never actually testified there or had any interaction with Judge Sotomayor. Indeed, in the vast majority of appeals cases, the litigants never go near the court house.

So ... exactly what can these guys contribute to our understanding of Judge Sotomayor? Nothing. However, if the GOP thinks they have a winning strategy here, the Democrats could strike back very, very hard. They could just add a truckload of witnesses to their list: people who litigated in front of Sotomayor and approved of her findings. Not that it would really be any more meaningful or appropriate than what the GOP is doing.

If Joe-the-Plumber can pronounce on issues of economy, I see nothing wrong with letting Frank-the-Firefighter weigh in on the issues of constitutional law. You go to the Senate hearings with the experts you have, not the experts you might want to have.
---------------------------

The right loves him [Kirsanov] since he is a African American Russian Jew [...] -- Napoleon, @15:53

Pushkin's direct descendant on the wrong side of the blanket?

I haven't seen any real answers to Chief Justice Roberts' question yet, just a lot of rage.

Here's another question for Judge Sotomayor:

"The Obama Administration's friend of the court brief in Ricci called for the case to be remanded to the district court for retrial on the facts. But you issued a summary judgment in favor of Mayor DeStefano. Why did were you more extremist than the Obama administration?

Now, if the GOP Senators have some brains, they'll call as a witness not just the plaintiff Ricci, but also the defendant DeStefano, the eight-term Democrat mayor of New Haven to cheated Ricci. Then, they'll ask all sorts of tough questions of DeStefano based on Justice Sam Alito's concurring opinion that shows how cheating Ricci was just part of old-fashioned Tammany Hall style machine politics that the civil service laws are supposed to prevent. You'll just have three Italian-American guys going at it -- Ricci and Alito vs. DeStefano.

PGE says:

"If I were on the committee, I would tell the firefighters that only an idiot would have asked them to be witnesses if they aren't experts on constitutional law; that the presumption is that the gentleman from the other side isn't an idiot. Then I'd spend my 5 minutes asking them about precedent, stare decisis, etc. And I would ask them why they're wasting the comittee's time if they can't answer because, obviously, the gentleman from the other side wouldn't be the one wasting the comittee's time."

Great idea!

Especially considering that the Democrats' pro-Sotomayor witness list includes:

"David Cone, former Major League Baseball pitcher"

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0709/Bloomberg_New_Haven_fireman_top_SMayor_witness_list.html

Since when does an appellate court judge "issue summary judgment"? Better trolls please.

Essentially, the Democrats just want to shove the Ricci case down the Memory Hole.

The Democrats do not care about Ricci. If anyone should be shoving the case "down the Memory Hole", it should be the GOP as it completely blows the notion that the GOP gives a rat's butt about originalist/strict constructionist legal interpretation/opposition to judicial activism.

yeah, the right probably shouldn't spend too much time on Ricci, in particular on putting their guy Alito out there after he wrote one of the least judicial, most inappropriate, intemparate, overtly race-baiting opinions ever authored by a Supreme Court justice. you know its a bad day when of three separate opinions written by the conservatives, Scalia comes off the most calm and level-headed.

The GOP hatred is getting more vocal.

Let's hear it for the boys!!! Eventually, they will realize they are fighting a losing battle.

Best. Empathy. Joke. Ever.

Dem Senator: Sir, are you a lawyer or do you have some other learned knowledge of Constitutional Law and judicial practice?

Witness: What?

Senator: Thank you for coming. No further questions.

Right, that's a political winner if there ever was one! The public finds nothing more appealing than lawyers insulting firemen.

Here we go again, racial profiling.

To say they will lock up all Arab looking people - 1) didn't some of the Somalians that was recently here in the U.S. leave their jobs and the country to go back to Somalia to carry out suicide bombings.
2) wasn't the last attempted attack on this country committed by black guys from the Caribbean, like Trinidad.

If the GOP wasn't full of hatred and ignorance, they would know that as long as certain parts of the Caribbean & Latin America have residency/pensionado/economic/citizenship programs there are people there from the Middle East.

Example, Belize, the head of the country is Palestinian.

You have Arabs, Iranians in Cuba, Belize, Cayman Islands, Panama, Puerto Rico, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Bahamas....in fact, they have their own mosques in these countries.

And for those who don't know, Iranians are not Arabs, Iranians is everything but, such as Mongolians, Turkish, Greeks.....BTW, in the earlier centuries known an Aryan.

Also, how do they know who looks Arab - I mean, there are Arabs that have blonde hair, eyes that are blue, green, hazel. Then you have kids of mixed heritage that include white that grew up in these countries or practiced their religion. And what about the white women/men that have joined this religion? Or the blacks from the Islands or prisons that are now practicing muslims

[...] there are Arabs that have blonde hair, eyes that are blue, green, hazel. -- anjell, @0:22

You're, probably, thinking of their Jewish cousins; same Semitic family but much more open to intermarriage (not to mention pogrom results) and, thus, to blue or hazel eyes and blond hair.

As for your question on how to tell... You can't go wrong with the Nazi model: keep meticulous paperwork and condemn everyone through the fifth generaton.

oh, forgot, Rhinoplasty - Nose jobs is a booming business in Iran and the Middle East.

Exlibra,

Yes, I do understand what you are saying. However, you still have kids whose mother was white, and they were kidnapped and taken to Iran, and Middle Eastern Countries, in fact, this happen also in Greece, and India.

Oh, Exlibra,

I'm not disputing your point whatsoever,
but I will use the singer Cher as an example,
her sister fit the Nazi model, yet, Cher got all of her father's features.

It's "insulting" a fireman to inquire as to what relevant testimony he can offer as to Sotomayor's competency?