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Conservative columnist George Will has joined many who are calling for a commission to investigate the use of enhanced interrogation techiniques. "We ought to have a commission. Fred Hiatt in The Washington Post suggests this morning, Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter, bring them down, set it up and answer some factual questions," said Will.

We have opening statements this morning and I see they are about to take a break for lunch...Your thoughts?

Here's an article stating that Conservatives on the bench are the activists in our midst:

We found that justices vary widely in their inclination to strike down Congressional laws. Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H. W. Bush, was the most inclined, voting to invalidate 65.63 percent of those laws; Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, was the least, voting to invalidate 28.13 percent. The tally for all the justices appears below.

Thomas 65.63 %
Kennedy 64.06 %
Scalia 56.25 %
Rehnquist 46.88 %
O’Connor 46.77 %
Souter 42.19 %
Stevens 39.34 %
Ginsburg 39.06 %
Breyer 28.13 %

One conclusion our data suggests is that those justices often considered more "liberal" - Justices Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens - vote least frequently to overturn Congressional statutes, while those often labeled "conservative" vote more frequently to do so. At least by this measure (others are possible, of course), the latter group is the most activist.

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Considering the current makeup of the court -- and the long-established propensity of Arthur Kennedy to lean right on civil-rights cases -- this probably isn't a surprise, just deeply unfortunate:

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg's dissent, which she read aloud in court Monday.

You can read the ruling here [PDF]. Ginsburg's dissent is especially worth reading, since she thoroughly eviscerates the skewed logic the conservatives applied here. The key graf:

By order of this Court, New Haven, a city in which African-Americans and Hispanics account for nearly 60 percent of the population, must today be served as it was in the days of undisguised discrimination by a fire department in which members of racial and ethnic minorities
are rarely seen in command positions. ... The Court's order and opinion, I anticipate, will not have staying power.

There's also a lot of speculation about how this will affect Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Court, since the ruling overturned here was hers. However, what's clear also is that if anyone is being an "activist judge" here, it is the Court's right-wing faction.

As People for the American Way observed in its statement:

Sotomayor and her panel colleagues were bound by longstanding precedent and federal law. They applied the law without regard to their personal views and unanimously affirmed the district court ruling. To do anything but would have been judicial activism.

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In a surprise verdict for the Roberts court:

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the strip search of a 13-year-old schoolgirl violated the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

In a closely watched case filled with poignant facts, the court ruled 8-1 that Arizona school officials violated student Savana Redding's Fourth Amendment rights when they searched her down to her bra and underpants. Officials were looking for pain relievers, which they didn't find.

"The content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion," Justice David Souter wrote for the majority.

The ruling involving Redding, who's now a college student, has been anticipated by schools nationwide, which must balance concerns about student privacy with adult fears of drug abuse and school violence.

And guess who the lone hold out was on the court? Clarence Thomas.

Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to decide that the search of Redding was reasonable.

The court divided more closely, though, on whether the individual school officials who oversaw the search should be liable for damages. While seven members agreed that the officials were immune from lawsuits, Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg contended that the school's assistant principal, Kerry Wilson, should be held liable.

"Wilson's treatment of Redding was abusive and it was not reasonable for him to believe that the law permitted it," said Ginsburg, the court's only female member.

Scott Lemieux has a great post up about the Roberts courts and how he never sides with individual rights:

In light of two controversial 5-4 Supreme Court decisions this week, Matt is reminded of Jeffrey Toobin's point that "In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff."...read on

Maybe they read his post...

Now watch the wingnut fun begin! Sotomayor, a child of the Bronx, has already been the focus of attacks from the librul media, so we can only speculate as to how much worse the right-wing assaults will be. She'll be seen as slightly to the left of Abbie Hoffman by the time they're done with her:

President Obama this morning will announce that U.S. appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York is his pick to replace retiring justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court, White House officials said.

The 10:15 a.m. announcement will be made at the White House, before Obama leaves Washington for a two-day trip to California and Las Vegas that will focus mostly on fundraising events.

The president finalized his deliberations at Camp David over the weekend, and notified his staff this morning.

Media Matters did a roundup of the Sotomayor attacks a few weeks back, including the hit job done by a New Republic writer:

Despite the glaring flaws, Rosen's assessment of Sotomayor was widely adopted by other media figures.

Mark Halperin, Time's conventional-wisdom maven, announced "Jeff Rosen Raises Warning Flags on Sotomayor" and described "Jeff" Rosen as "the New Republic's legal eagle." (What of Rosen's thin sourcing and dishonest quoting? Who cares! It's Jeff! He's a legal eagle!) The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder touted Rosen's piece as a reflection of "the respectable intellectual center." (Ambinder's colleague, Ta-Nehisi Coates responded: "You don't get to be the 'respectable intellectual center' and then practice your craft in the gossip-laden, ignorant muck. Not for long anyway.")

If the "respectable intellectual center" approached the prospect of a Sotomayor nomination by doctoring quotes in order to trash her intelligence, you might wonder what the disreputable fringe did. Well, National Review's John Derbyshire and Mark Hemmingway described her as "dumb and obnoxious," but they weren't really moving the ball forward in the anti-Sotomayor campaign; they were just interpreting Rosen's work.

Fox News' Andrew Napolitano told listeners on his radio show that Sotomayor "has a reputation for not being a very hard worker" -- like Rosen, citing anonymous law clerks to back up the claim.

Even David Letterman got in on the act. Here's Bob Somerby, describing Letterman's Sotomayor sketch:

Letterman's clip was openly racial/ethnic, a throwback to what once seemed to be an earlier day. With it, he gave viewers a throwback first impression of a sweaty, crazy, yelling jurist -- of a woman who graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in her real life, among other acts of distinction. But this astounding bad judgment by Big Humor Dave followed an act of grotesque judgment by the New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen. Rosen authored a gruesome post built on anonymous sources which -- let's be honest -- openly trafficked in racial stereotypes.

Dumb. Lazy. Temperamental. It's enough to make you wonder how she made it from the South Bronx to Princeton, Yale, and a federal judgeship. And remember: She didn't get there the George W. Bush way. You know many lazy, stupid people who win Princeton's highest academic prize?

Worst of all, there's no reason to think that the treatment Sonia Sotomayor received from the media over the past week will stop with her. The coverage of Sotomayor has clearly been built at least in part on gender and racial stereotypes, so we can probably expect similar coverage of other women and minorities who are mentioned as possible nominees.

Guess we'll have to sit tight and wait a while longer to find out for sure. Who do you like from this list, and why?

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is considering a list of more than six contenders for the Supreme Court that is dominated by women and Hispanics, one that includes judges and leaders from own his administration who have never donned a judicial robe.

Among those under consideration are Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Appeals Court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Pamela Wood. California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno is also under review by Obama.

Sources familiar with Obama's deliberations confirmed the names to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because no candidates have been revealed by the White House. The confirmation amounts to the first time any name has been directly tied to Obama.

One official cautioned that Obama is considering other people who have not been publicly mentioned. And more names may be added as the administration considers a replacement for retiring Justice David Souter.

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Stephen Colbert noticed last night that, when President Obama said he would look for someone with "empathy" to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, the meme on the lips of all the Villagers (including Orrin Hatch) was that "empathy" was "code" for something -- most often "activist judges."

Wait -- isn't "activist judges" itself just code for "judges who don't rule the way wingnuts want"? Oh well.

In any event, Colbert manages to decode -- via a detour into the Star Trek universe -- the TRUE meaning of that invidious and insidious code word, "Empathy", which produces the anagrams "Meth Pay," "Ape Myth," and "Ham Type":

Which clearly means Obama plans to appoint a drug-addled evolutionist with swine flu.

Sounds as reasonable as anything we've heard from the Village.

I've been watching Arlen Specter for most of my life, and all I can say is, if you think he can be trusted, you're just not paying attention. He needs to prove he can't be controlled, and it's always when you least expect it. Harry Reid must have cut some kind of deal with him on the SCOTUS nominee, and while I hope I'm wrong, I predict he will be more trouble than he's worth:

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--President Barack Obama's first nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court could be an early test for Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter as a newly minted Democrat.

Specter's announcement this week that he was switching parties after 43 years in the GOP rocked Washington and put the Democrats close to a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate.

Specter could prove a key vote in any fight over Obama's Supreme Court pick if the Republicans attempt to amount a filibuster of the president's choice to replace Justice David Souter, who is retiring.

"I would expect him to support Obama's nominee unless it's a real radical," said Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute.

Sheldon Goldman, a political-science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said Specter's vote could be "absolutely crucial" and predicted that the senator would be a strong backer of Obama's pick.

"Obama is in a terrific position," he said.

When it comes to Senate consideration of Supreme Court nominees, the Pennsylvania senator has perhaps the most colorful history of any current lawmaker, having angered colleagues in both parties.

"I supported very conservative nominees like Justice [Antonin] Scalia and very liberal nominees like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg," Specter said in Philadelphia Friday. "I think that's the way it ought to be."

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From the Ed Show May 1, 2009. Ed Schultz's "Op-Ed" on President Obama's choice for David Souter's replacement on the Supreme Court. Ed's got this one right. Elections have consequences. The GOP did nothing but carping over their desire for an "up and down" vote when they were wanting Bush's right wingers nominated to the point where I was ready to throw something through my television screen if I heard it one more time. Bill "the cat killer" Frist said it so many times I was wondering if he was repeating it in his sleep.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot we'll see what sort of three ring circus they put on to obstruct Obama's nomination. I await the WATB side show that is sure to come. Fortunately since we have so many of them recorded crying about getting Bush's nominees through the inevitable hissy fits will be much easier to be called out for that they are..feigned indignation and wanting things both ways. Whether our sorry ass excuse for a "mainstream media" will follow suit is another story.

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President Obama today interrupted the daily White House press briefing to talk about replacing David Souter on the Supreme Court:

Now, the process of selecting someone to replace Justice (David) Souter is among my most serious responsibilities as president, so I will seek somebody with a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity. I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation. I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes. I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role. I will seek somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time.

The Huffington Post has a lineup of the five most likely candidates.

On cue, the wingnuts (led by Malkin) are lining to scream, wail, tear out their hair, gnash their teeth, and do all those things wingnuts do reflexively, but with the added enjoyment of being completely impotent and irrelevant.

Meanwhile, white male Villagers like Mark Halperin are whining over the likelihood that the nominee will be neither white nor male, or at least not both. Of course, isn't William Ayers a white male? How much, exactly, do those attributes really matter?

It's like Dylan sez: "It's wonder that you still know how to breathe."

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John Amato:

Things got a whole lot more interesting for President Obama. Justice David Souter is retiring from the bench and the president will be able to pick a true progressive judge to fill the vacancy in the coming months. I doubt he wanted to tackle this topic so soon with everything else on his plate, but that's the hand he was dealt and I look forward to being involved heavily in the process. I can only imagine what will come out of the mouths of the teabaggers and FOX News. Brace yourself, this is going to get ugly on their side very quickly. I hope to have our website released soon that will be dedicated to the Supreme Court. It's already designed and I'm lining up the troops as we speak.

From The Rachel Maddow Show April 30, 2009. Justice David Souter plans to retire from the Supreme Court. From the MSNBC press release:

NBC: Souter to retire from Supreme Court
His retirement would give Obama his first chance to nominate a justice

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice David Souter plans to retire, sources told NBC News Thursday night.

Speculation about Souter's plans began to swirl as the eight other justices were known to have hired the four law clerks who will work with them in the Supreme Court term that begins in October. Souter has been the lone holdout, hiring no one.

A retirement by Souter, 69, would give President Barack Obama his first chance to nominate a justice and the next few months would bring Senate confirmation hearings.

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