Friday, May 29, 2009

Is the Right Attacking "So-So Sonia" To Give Her Cred On The Left?


And to conceal their delight in Obama's choice?

Cuz she's a chicken-chokin' corporatist's wet-dream, from what I can see.

She never met a corporation which didn't require more succor than the plaintiffs against it. To say she's "insurance-friendly" would be a major understatement. From her record, So-So will be a reliably 'conservative' voice in matters of advancing governmental authority, endorsing corporate hegemony, and regulating regulations. She may rule slightly more 'liberally' on the notorious "wedge issues," though as an observant Roman Catholic (# 6 on the fucking highest court in a secular state), she cannot be relied upon when it comes to matters of the intersection of 'faith and morals' with civil rights and equal protection. She's no Oscar Romero...

David Lindorf, this morning on BuzzFlash, offers some interesting impressions:
I don't know at this point whether Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a good choice for Supreme Court Justice or a bad one.

She certainly is a lousy judge for writers and other creative people, having ruled (and been overruled by an appellate court and then, when that reversal was upheld, by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case called New York Times Inc. v. Tasini) that the Times and periodical publishers could reprint, without any additional compensation, any freelance works they contracted on the basis that they had a general copyright on each entire issue they publish.

And she appears to have rarely met an insurance company that she didn't feel was more deserving of court succor than any insured person suing an insurer. In a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reporter Joseph N. DiStefano quotes an insurance attorney named Randy Maniloff as saying that in cases involving insurance companies and insurance policyholders "It's insurers by a landslide."

Such a pro-corporate position would put her in league with the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas wing of the court, and would be consistent with her pro-corporate stance vis-à-vis writers and artists and copyright law. (In fairness, Sotomayor did rule against an insurance firm and in favor of a policyholder's family in 2005.)
She's not particularly Green, not notably pro-gay rights, says she's a proponent of 'stare decisis' (but so did that drooling shitmonkey, Roberts, at his confirmation hearings);, not appreciably different, that is, from the run of SCROTUS appointees over the past 30 years. Which is why I believe the Pukes are, in fact, camouflaging their pleasant surprise that Obama named her.

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