Don’t look now, but Mr. Dobbs has got himself a platform if or when he decides to run for office, maybe the Senate from New Jersey, let’s say. After all, with Justice Sotomayor’s first opinion, she’s blown Dobbs’ whole patter out the window. I was reminded of Dobbs just last night when I found myself sitting in front of the fireplace in my office late, flipping channels, landing on a repeat of George Lopez’s special for HBO. It was taped right after the vote on Sotomayor, with Lopez making a point to call out Dobbs, after mentioning that all the Republicans who voted against her wouldn’t get the Latino vote. When he mentioned Dobbs the audience erupted. It’s a reminder of just how important Justice Sotomayor is to the Latino community, as well as women, let me add.
Via the New York Times, Adam Liptak finds one section of Judge Sotomayor’s first opinion that is noteworthy regarding language:
In an otherwise dry opinion, Justice Sotomayor did introduce one new and politically charged term into the Supreme Court lexicon.
Justice Sotomayor’s opinion in the case, Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter, No. 08-678, marked the first use of the term “undocumented immigrant,” according to a legal database. The term “illegal immigrant” has appeared in a dozen decisions.
ImmigrationProf Blog had this to say: the choice of terminology — aliens. illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants, people — matters in the discourse over immigration. Consequently, by employing a more neutral term, Justice Sotomayor has added significantly to the Supreme Court’s dialogue on immigration, which is likely to be with us for the foreseeable future.
Justice Thomas used the opportunity to take a swipe at Justice Sotomayor for using what I would call her instincts.
The decision was unanimous, but Justice Clarence Thomas declined to join the part of Justice Sotomayor’s opinion discussing why the cost of allowing immediate appeals outweighs the possibility that candid communications between lawyers and their clients might be chilled.
In a concurrence, Justice Thomas took a swipe at his new colleague, saying she had “with a sweep of the court’s pen” substituted “value judgments” and “what the court thinks is a good idea” for the text of a federal law.
Intuitive thinking, when used with federal law interpretation, is obviously something that makes Thomas and other conservatives uncomfortable, but it’s a quality of importance when thinking about the ramifications of being a judge at the ultimate precipice of weighing laws and lives. It’s the difference between breathing opinions of the 21st century and the dry regurgitation of moribund mediocrity that allows for no consideration of the modern times in which we live.
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As if that lickspittle for wingnut nation Thomase would know anything about jurisprudence even if it jumped up and bit him in his consEEEEERvative ass.
Immigration is a weird subject for people who don’t believe in ‘borders’. It’s the whole story of ‘Paradise Valley’, the ficticious Garden of Eden found by a small group – a valley that provides food and shelter with hardly any effort due to its abundance. When others attempt to move in and share it, there are always two factions: the Left who are willing to share, and the Right who see the possibility of their benefits being depleted so new people are driven away.
For me, I’ve never understood when people say they ‘deserve’ the best of this country – simply because we’re ‘born’ here. This gives some people more priviledges – sometimes literally because their birthplace was a few short miles away from the other.
I’d much rather see Heinlein’s vision of America – wherein you ‘earn’ your priviledges (such as voting) by ‘serving’ your country, not because of your birthplace.
And if you ‘immigrate’ here and ‘serve’ – possibly more than your ‘resident’ neighbors did – than you should get those priviledges. That makes far more sense, it seems to me, than ‘my Mom pushed me out *here*’.
Unless you speal Lakota, Ojibwa or Brule you’re ALL illegal immigrants from where I sit. And that MORE then goes double for the anglo side of my family. So all this crap about illegal this and illegal that is just a bunch of White Folks trying to hide their racism under legalez. Ever notice whenever they talk about “illegals” it’s ALWAYS brown skinned folks? How come the repugnantklan and their soul mates never harp about all the illegal IRISH running around in America? Or all the ones from the former Soviet states?
Excellent point, Sec.