Daily News Channel
Barack Obama has an uncanny ability to disarm critics, especially those itching for a fight, and it was on full display this past week. His choice of federal judge Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court nominee, of course, got all the attention. But another key appointment of a Hispanic with top-notch credentials and a compelling personal story also showed just how good the President is at keeping his opponents off balance.
Before I moved to California, I enjoyed voting. Once every four years, I thought very deeply for a very long time about the presidential candidates and then voted for the Democrat
If you doubt that President Obama has changed American politics, consider that we are about to have the first Supreme Court confirmation hearing in almost a quarter-century that does not revolve, in one way or another, around Roe v.
Republicans kept the pressure on the president’s Supreme Court pick Friday, pushing the idea that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is an activist judge who will bring a leftist agenda to the bench. Meanwhile, the White House tried to soften remarks Sotomayor made in 2001 that have rankled conservatives, who say her assertion that her experiences as a Latina woman might make her judgments more sound than those of a white man brands her as a racist. “I’m sure she would have restated it, but if you look at the entire sweep of the essay she wrote, what’s clear is that she was simply saying that her life experiences will give her information about the struggles and hardships that people are going through that will make her a good judge,” President Obama said in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams.
He burst on the music scene in the 1970s with the Commodores and then went on to a major solo career with hits such as "All Night Long" and "Hello." She made a name for herself on the TV series “The Simple Life,” which followed the exploits of her and fellow socialite Paris Hilton, and in the tabloids. Father-and-daughter Lionel and Nicole Richie have been making news for decades, but rarely together. In their first TV interview together in six years, they talked with CNN’s Larry King about their relationship; her time in rehab; Lionel’s first grandchild, Harlow; their growing family; and more.
Opponents of California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages launched a new court challenge Wednesday, led by lawyers who were on opposite sides of the case that settled the 2000 presidential race. Attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies have asked a federal judge to block California from enforcing the ban, known as Proposition 8. “We are two lawyers from opposite ends of the political spectrum who have come together to support one of the most important issues of our time,” Olson told reporters.
The Republican Party risks further alienation from Hispanics by challenging the nomination of Sonia Sotomayer, who would become the first Hispanic, and third woman, on the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, President Obama nominated 54-year-old Sotomayor — who is of Puerto Rican descent — to replace the retiring Justice David Souter. Sotomayer is a judge on the 2nd U.S.
As Supreme Court hopeful Sonia Sotomayor breaks ground for Hispanics, she is poised to add an exclamation point to another historic demographic shift: the move to a Catholic court. Sotomayor was raised Catholic and if she is confirmed, six out of nine, or two-thirds of the justices on the court will be from the faith. Catholics make up about one-quarter of the U.S
While California’s Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a ban on same-sex marriages that voters voters passed in November, the fight will undoubtedly go forward. The ruling by the court allows about 18,000 same-sex marriages performed before the ban to remain valid. The decision was met with chants of “shame on you” from a crowd of about 1,000 people gathered outside the court building in San Francisco on Tuesday.
So why did Sonia Sotomayor get the nod as Barack Obama’s first pick for the Supreme Court? Of the four women in final contention for the job — the competition included two members of his Administration, Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano as well as his fellow Chicagoan, Appeals Court Judge Diane P. Wood — Sotomayor was the candidate with whom the President was least familiar.