Today in Washington D. C. - July 15, 2009 - Reid Pushes Hate Crimes onto DOD Funding Bill

DOD Funding & Hate Crimes Bill: The Senate resumed consideration of the fiscal 2010 Defense authorization bill, S. 1390. The bill would authorize $679.8 billion in military funding.

Warning: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today has filed a hate crimes amendment to the DOD Authorization Bill. He then filled the tree, which means no amendments can be offered to his amendment, and filed cloture on the amendment. He is calling for cloture to rush the bill through before any debate can take place. As identified by Americans for Limited Government this "hate crimes" bill may be one of the most dangerously bigotted pieces of class warfare legislation ever to come before Congress.

For information on the amendment, read: Senator Leahy Hides "Hate Crime Bill" In Pentagon Budget. There is a brief video which explains the dangers vastly expanded federal hate crimes laws pose to people of faith. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) spoke Monday on the floor of the U.S. Senate and argued essentially that since he couldn't get 60 honest votes to pass the hate crimes bill S. 909, then he would attach it as an amendment to S. 1390, the National Defense Authorization Act.

Consider the dishonesty and deception of adding this amendment to a military budget. Congress has determined homosexual conduct is incompatible with military service. Homosexual "conduct" is addressed in Article 31, UCMJ and is a crime under the code. As a result of the Clinton administration's "don't ask - don't tell," under DOD Policy, Homosexual orientation is not a bar to service entry or continued service unless manifested by homosexual conduct . This a hate crimes bill which addresses sexual orientation as a class is being proposed to be added to (hidden within) the Military's Pentagon budget which would initial target the civilians and setup a conflict with the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Judge Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings: The Judiciary Committee resumes first round of questioning the nominee - Judge Sonia Sotomayor - to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Each senator has 30 minutes to question Judge Sotomayor and 8 senators remain to question the nominee. Following the first round of questioning, the committee will go into closed session to review Judge Sotomayor’s FBI report, a routine check done for every nominee. After that, second round questioning will begin, with each senator allotted 20 minutes. If senators finish their questions at the end of the day, on Thursday, and possibly Friday, witnesses for and against Judge Sotomayor will be heard from, including Frank Ricci of the New Haven Fire Department.

Under questioning from Republican senators yesterday, Judge Sonia Sotomayor gave a number of answers that clearly conflict with her record. Among these were statements concerning her “wise Latina” remarks, her role at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), and her decision in the Ricci case.

Sotomayor was asked early in the day to explain her speech where she said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Politico reports, “[E]ven though Sotomayor told an audience in 2001 that she was ‘not so sure’ she agreed with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s oft-stated view that a ‘wise old man’ and a ‘wise old woman’ would reach the same result in cases, Sotomayor said Tuesday that her comments actually showed her ‘agreeing with the sentiment that ... O’Connor was attempting to convey.’” The claim that she was agreeing with Justice O’Connor is the complete opposite of what Sotomayor was saying at the time.

When Sotomayor was asked about her time at PRLDEF, she tried to downplay her involvement with the group, even though The New York Times wrote in 1992, “For 12 years she was a top policy maker on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.” And The Times pointed out in May that lawyers for the group said that Sotomayor “was an involved and ardent supporter of their various legal efforts during her time with the group.” Given these reports and the various high-level positions she held with the group, it seems odd that when she was asked about the extreme positions taken on abortion rights by PRLDEF, Judge Sotomayor said, “I never reviewed those briefs.”

The case of the white and Hispanic New Haven firefighters who were denied promotion because not enough minority candidates passed a promotion test, Ricci v. DeStefano came up several times, and both Judge Sotomayor and Senate Democrats claimed repeatedly that she was just following precedent in ruling against the firefighters’ discrimination claims. However, Sotomayor failed to cite any prior precedent in her opinion and judges on the district court, Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court all agreed that “few, if any, precedents in the Court of Appeals” addressed the issues presented in Ricci.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats repeatedly distorted statements by Judge Sotomayor and Justice Sam Alito, from when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a “Fact Check” piece, the AP wrote, “In endorsing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy did some creative rewriting of history. And he put quote marks around it. Trying to head off criticism of a controversial comment, Leahy misquoted Sotomayor's own words in kicking off the second day of her confirmation hearings.” Leahy and others also kept claiming that Alito had said he thinks of his own ethnic background when discrimination cases come up as a way of excusing Judge Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” remarks. But Alito explicitly said “It's my job to apply the law. It's not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.”

Observers should keep an eye out for more confirmation conversions from Judge Sotomayor on her record and for Democrats to continue to misrepresent various aspects of her record. Related Material:
- SRCC: Republicans Expose Discrepancies In Judge Sotomayor’s Testimony Vs. Record
- VIDEO: Sotomayor's Silence
- SRCC: Chairman Leahy Joins Others Unable to Defend Sotomayor Remarks
- SRCC: Confirmation Conversion Part 7: Sotomayor’s “Troubling” Record on the Second Amendment
- SRCC: Judiciary Committee Democrats Previously Stated “Evasions, Avoidance, and Hiding Behind Legal Jargon Simply Will Not Suffice”
- SRCC: Never Reviewed The Briefs?
- SRCC: Sotomayor Again Reverses On O'Connor Statement, Mischaracterizes Alito Statement
- SRCC Confirmation Conversion Part 8: "Legal Realism"
- SRCC: Sotomayor Says She Has “No Idea” How Anyone Could Be Assuredo of Her Position on Abortion
- SRCC- Confirmation Conversion Part 9: Video "We Don't Make Policy"?
- SRCC: Judge Sotomayor Was Not Just a Board Member of Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund
- SRCC: Confirmation Conversion Part 10: Foreign Law

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