The mainstream media is cranking up their efforts to assist push President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor through her confirmation hearings.

The methodology is simple:

One, attempt to firmly hitch Sotomayor to Barack Obama’s positive personal ratings by declaring the choice to be “brilliant, well-thought out or using some referential praise from Obama himself.

Two, declare Sotomayor to be a moderate-conservative whatever that may mean. Unfortunately, most people will not give due consideration to the fact that when a committed far-left activist uses the term moderate, they may well be speaking of someone a little bit to the right of Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, or others of their ilk. 

Three, declare Sotomayor to be a conventional choice. Here I defer to columnist George Will

“Her ethnicity aside, Sotomayor is a conventional choice. The court will remain composed entirely of former appellate court judges. And like conventional liberals, she embraces identity politics, including the idea of categorical representation: A person is what his or her race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference is, and members of a particular category can be represented -- understood, empathized with -- only by persons of the same identity.”

Democrats compounded confusion by thinking of the court as a representative institution. Such personalization of the judicial function subverts the rule of law.

Four, demonize those who speak out against Sotomayor as extremists, bigots, racists, right-wing crazies, wing-nuts or whack-jobs.

Five, excuse her past comments and writings by claiming they were taken out of context or that her judicial decisions were extremely narrow and affected only the single case at issue.

Six, dismiss her numerous reversals by the Supreme Court by claiming that are judges are reversed from time-to-time; and avoid discussing the true nature of the rebuke which often proved that Sotomayor’s reasoning was significantly flawed or biased by a social agenda.

It is up to each individual to make up their own minds rather than blindly accept the positions of an Administration which is ideologically bankrupt and exists solely on the personal charisma of President Obama. Look at what he says and then what he does – and you will find a pattern of complacency, corruption and an agenda which supports Marxism over our traditional capitalistic democracy.

My perspective: What is not in the constitution …

Our Founding Fathers believed in limited government and set about granting the federal government limited rights and functions; reserving all other duties for individuals and the individual states.  Our Founding fathers did contemplate judicial usurpation of power and thus built-in checks and balances into a system which demanded three co-equal branches of government: the legislative, the executive and the judicial.

Unfortunately, by appointing activist judges who declare that our Constitution is a “living document” which should be constantly reviewed in light of the current times – they break with the stability, security and generational continuity offered by the Constitution in favor of supporting the political expediencies of the day. Instead of ruling on the Constitutionality of a matter or interpreting the law in favor of the framers of the Constitution, activist judges have sought to usurp the power of Congress by making de facto laws from a document which remained silent on the issues.

Roe v. Wade – does not deal with abortion per se, but the federal funding of abortion activities. Clearly this is not a federal issue, but a state issue and the Court’s ruling is unconstitutional on its face.

Children of illegal aliens becoming automatic citizens likewise is a tortured interpretation of an Amendment to grant citizenship to those slaves which were forcibly brought to the United States or born of slave parents. It need not convey citizenship to the children of illegal aliens. In fact, most nations demand that children born of foreign parents demand that the children assume the nationality of the parents.

Dual Citizenship – when one takes an oath to defend and support the Constitution of the United States, it is supposed that an American citizen does not have an allegiance to a foreign power. This raises questions about Barack Obama himself who was said to have traveled abroad using a foreign passport rather than a United States passport. Of course, Obama refuses to answer questions about his origins and his associations – and the mainstream media has ceded all journalistic credibility and ethics in not pursuing the matter.

Global Warming – imposing stringent controls over the economy is not addressed.

Education – imposing controls over the state’s education activities by attempting to blackmail or extort cooperation by granting or withholding federal funds should be a criminal action.

Civil rights are addressed in the Constitution as seeing all people as equal. There are no carve-outs for quotas to redress grievances of individuals or of any race, ethnicity, etc. There are specific remedies in court actions for individuals and groups – but not at a federal level which contradicts equality of man.

What we seek in a Supreme Court justice should be easy to determine:

Knowledge of the law and especially the Constitution of the United States;

Judicial fairness which does not bias the nominee to take action in favor of a pre-conceived political or social agenda or impair their impartiality towards either side in the dispute.

Judicial temperament which would restrict wild and crazy people from being appointed to the Court; and above all,

People who do not make law from the bench but restrict their rulings of the interpretation of the Constitution of the United States.

It does not matter so much what prestigious law school they may have attended or their grade point average as it does a history of well-researched and well-founded judicial rulings and writings that indicate fairness, balance and temperament.

Why I believe Sotomayor is wrong for the Court …

One, by her writings and past actions, I believe that Sotomayor is a racist or a bigot due to the fact that she seems to view everything through a prism of race, ethnicity or the lens of social policy dedicated to redressing the alleged wrongs of past generations. Under this apparent limitation, the parties seeking justice before the Court would be at a significant disadvantage if the matter included either racial or social policy components.

The recent case of the Connecticut firefighters who were denied a fair hearing on their case involving reverse racial discrimination makes my point. Sotomayor and a number of her fellow jurists did not address significant and compelling Constitutional issues and blew off the claims of the firefighters with an originally unpublished one-paragraph decision. Of course, the Supreme Court disagreed and is now hearing the matter. A clear demonstration of Sotomayor’s beliefs and lack of judicial appropriateness. More on the base can be found here.

Two, I believe that Sotomayor’s bias towards ecological issues as put forth by the far-left may have a lasting and damaging effect on the economy of the United States and the freedoms of its citizens.

One need only consider a recent ruling where Sotomayor ruled “that power companies must protect ‘fish and other aquatic organisms’ from being sucked into cooling vents regardless of the costs, saying the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was not allowed to use a cost-benefit analysis in measuring power companies’ compliance with the federal Clean Water Act.”

Like many other Sotomayor decisions, “the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling on April 1 of this year that a cost-benefit analysis was entirely appropriate when judging whether a power company was following the law.”

“Sotomayor, writing for the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, said that the case was about the fish, ruling that the EPA could only consider whether a power company was able to buy the technology, not whether it made economic sense to do so.”

" ‘This case is about fish and other aquatic organisms,’ wrote Sotomayor. ‘The flow of water into these plants traps (or 'impinges') large aquatic organisms against grills or screens, which cover the intake structures, and draws (or 'entrains') small aquatic organisms into the cooling mechanism; the resulting impingement and entrainment from these operations kill or injure billions of aquatic organisms every year.’”

" ‘In determining BAT (Best Available Technology), by contrast, the EPA may consider cost as a factor to a limited degree, but only as to whether the cost of a given technology could be reasonably borne by the industry and not the relation between that technology’s cost and the benefits it achieves,’ Sotomayor concluded.”

“The EPA, she said, must first consider whether the industry could ‘reasonably’ bear the cost of new technology and then conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis--which measures which technology meets the EPA requirements the cheapest, not which technology is most economical to install.”

" ‘EPA may permissibly consider cost in two ways: (1) to determine what technology can be ‘reasonably borne’ by the industry and (2) to engage in cost-effectiveness analysis in determining BAT,’ wrote Sotomayor.
Cost, which gets passed on to customers as rate increases, can only be considered for technologies that meet EPA goals, rather than what effect it might have on the abilities of the power companies to produce electricity.”

" ‘Thus, the EPA must first determine what is the most effective technology that may reasonably be borne by the industry,’ Sotomayor explained. ‘Once this determination has been made, the EPA may then consider other factors, including cost-effectiveness, to choose a less expensive technology that achieves essentially the same results.’”

“The Supreme Court disagreed. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court that a cost-benefit analysis was entirely reasonable and that a cost-benefit analysis could be used to determine what is the ‘best available technology.’”

“ ‘But ‘best technology’ may also describe the technology that most efficiently produces some good,’ wrote Justice Scalia.  ‘It seems to us, therefore, that the phrase ‘best technology available’ … does not unambiguously preclude cost-benefit analysis.’”

“The Supreme Court ruled that Sotomayor was in error and that the EPA could continue using a cost-benefit analysis when enforcing environmental regulations.” 

“ ‘We conclude that the EPA permissibly relied on cost-benefit analysis in setting the national performance standards,’ Scalia wrote. ‘The Court of Appeals,’ Scalia ruled, ‘was therefore in error.’”

Considering that the environmental movement has been infiltrated with communists, Marxists, anarchists and others who do not wish the United States well – and want to use our own laws as weapons of class destruction against us, one must be careful in appointing an Obama-style Marxist or activist to a bench which will be besieged with s0-called “global warming” cases in the near future. To have am activist bench which creates public policy out of whole cloth where no Constitutional issue is at hand, is a clear and present danger to the citizens of the United States.

And three, I believe Sotomayor will not uphold the Second Amendment of the United States.

“In August 2008, Sotomayor affirmed the district court opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo, which ruled that the Constitution does not prohibit state governments from restricting the right to bear arms.”

“The district court’s decision stated that ‘the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right [to bear arms].”

Another activist lawyer?

Traditionally, the democrats, also known as the party of lawyers, has attempted to create social policy by bypassing the Congress and issuing Administrative rulings from the Executive branch of government or sought to involve the Courts in making public policy – a practice which is clearly unconstitutional as it usurps the authority of Congress to make all laws governing our land and citizens.

There is a critical flaw in democrat thinking …

Again, I defer to George Will who wrote: "Democrats compounded confusion by thinking of the court as a representative institution. Such personalization of the judicial function subverts the rule of law.

Defending OUR Constitution …

It is not so much a statement on President Obama’s choice for a vacant Supreme Court position as it is the need to defend OUR Constitution from those who would demean its protections in the name of creating social policy where no such right exists.

We need to let our Senators know that a vote for Sotomayor is a vote against preserving the traditional role of the Supreme Court under the Constitution. And secondarily, Sotomayor lacks the intellectual ability, judicial temperament and basic impartiality to serve. She should be regarded as Obama’s “Harriet Miers, an unqualified ideologue who needs to be rejected in favor of returning the Supreme Court to its traditional interpretive role.

In the final analysis, I believe it is her comment that the “court of appeals is where policy is made” is all the proof that we need that Sotomayor is not qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.

-- steve

Quote of the day: “Does she think the figure of Justice should lift her blindfold, an emblem of impartiality, and be partial to certain categories of persons?” – George Will

Reference Links:

Sotomayor Ruled Fish Must Be Protected from Power Plants Regardless of Cost-Benefit Analysis|CNSNews.com

Sotomayor Has Sparse Record on Social Issues|CNSNews.com 

Identity Justice: Obama's Conventional Choice|George F. Will

Sotomayor: Judging Obama and the Senate on their loyalty to the United States Constitution?|OneCitizenSpeaking

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OneCitizenSpeaking: Saying out loud what you may be thinking …