The Senate on Parade

So the so -called Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings are in progress. I say so-called because it seems so far that most of the procedure is to allow Senators the opportunity to ramble on, possibly (or probably) make fools of themselves, to let them show their constituents what they believe, and, incidentally, confirm a new Supreme Court justice.

Rachel Maddow said it was looking like the Jeff Sessions show. Ol' Jeff is a treat. he is really concerned that Sotomayor is a "racist." This from a guy who was denied a judicial appointment years ago because he said a white lawyer was a "disgrace to his race" for having black clients. Also, he was accused of calling a black lawyer "boy." You can see why racism is a particular concern of his. He wants to restrict it to white men, apparently.

Now, yours truly hasn't been watching the whole hearings. They pay people to suffer through these things, nobody pays me. I see the clips and hear the comments, no doubt slanted according to the presenter's racial or social background. Some of them may even be "wise Latina women." God I hope so.

It's almost alarming how foolish the Republicans are looking. I say "almost alarming" because lately it's just a given that Republicans will look foolish. In the absence of anything substantive to criticize Sotomayor over, the Repubes are grabbing onto any statement anywhere that she might have said, in the hope that in her off-the-cuff statements there might be gold. Gold for them to use to deny her a seat on the Court.

So they rattle on about the "wise Latina woman thing" and wonder if her "life experiences" will influence her decisions on the court (no one seems to have gone thru her 17 years of decisions as an appellate court justice to see if there is any evidence of this.) You know, I don't recall if the Repubes were concerned about John Robert's life experiences having an influence on his decisions. I suspect not.

I have had a running joke, a stupid running joke (not that that has ever stopped me) about calling Republicans "Repubicans." Drop the "L" and one has a reference to our "nether regions" as they might have once been called. That's basically where the republicans do their thinking, it seems. Certainly John Ensign and Mark Sanford have exposed the factual underpinnings of my little wordplay.
That's all for now.