- ‹ previous
- 1111 of 8902
- next ›
Kenneth Starr Endorses Sotomayor
Kenneth Starr, the lawyer who chased after President Bill Clinton and his wife, said on Thursday that he supports President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
Starr voiced his backing of Sotomayor while delivering the keynote speech at a luncheon held in Los Angeles for Loyola Law School's program for journalists who cover legal issues. He said that he "thinks very well of her." He noted that he has not written any official endorsement letter for Sotomayor but that no one had asked him to do so—suggesting he would if requested. Starr said that he has told more than one US senator that he supports her nomination, but he wouldn't identify which senators he has spoken to about Sotomayor.
Starr, dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law and a member of the rightwing Federalist Society, is one of the leaders of the conservative legal movement. A former judge and solicitor general, he served as the independent counsel who probed the Clintons on a number of fronts, most notably Bill Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky. The long and quite graphic report he produced on the Lewinsky matter led to the Republican's divisive and failed impeachment campaign against Clinton. Since then, Starr has worked on several death penalty cases, trying to overturn death sentences. He also represented a school board in Alaska sued by a student suspended for unfurling a banner declaring, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." He has worked for Blackwater (now known as Xe). More recently, he represented groups in California defending Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage in that state.
This isn’t the first time Starr has publicly offered support for an Obama nominee under fire from the right. In April, he wrote a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urging it to confirm Harold Hongju Koh to be the top legal adviser at the State Department and praising Koh’s "irreproachable integrity."
Starr has something of a working relationship with Sotomayor. As he noted during his luncheon talk, she twice came to Pepperdine to participate in a program the school runs for judicial clerks. "She was a huge hit with the students," Starr said.
Starr has made supportive remarks about Sotomayor earlier. On May 26, appearing on Fox News, he noted that she had a "very fine record." He said:
One of the most characteristics of a Justice is that she be humble, that she be modest in her approach to the Constitution.
He predicted that as a Supreme Court justice Sotomayor would be "modest, always listening carefully to the lawyers, listening carefully to her colleagues." But he did add that her controversial remark about appeals courts making policy was "a little troubling." He did not endorse her at that time.
But now he's out of the closet as a Sotomayor booster. How will Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and other conservatives who have tried to depict Sotomayor as a race-obsessed liberal activist take this news? More important, will Starr's endorsement--this is true conservative cover--make it even harder for Senate Republicans to go after her?
This story was reported by Stephanie Mencimer from Los Angeles. You can follow David Corn's postings and media appearances via Twitter by clicking here.
Starr?
I'm confused.
Is Kenneth Starr someone who's words we should believe when we hear them, or only when he says something we already agree with?
Endorsement..
I don't really know about Sotomayor...yes i agree is Starr really a credible person?..thanks for sharing this issue..
resveratrol side effects
Sotomayor
I hope the endorsement of Starr will have a good effect on the people in the community.Thanks for sharing this issue.
resveratrol biolabs ultra
time for rehab
I guess K Starr, like some other politicians of late, has noted the 100 days are over and is ready for political rehabilitation. Thanks Mencimer and Corn.
who gives a shit what this
who gives a shit what this asshole thinks? after all the money he wasted of the taxpayers nobody should even print anything this douchebag says
You Betcha!!
You Betcha!!
Ken Starr is actually pretty decent.
Starr was a judge before he became special prosecutor during the Clinton administration. He basically wrote a very, very important and very reasonable doctrine on how Motions for Summary Judgment are decided in Federal Courts. Boiling it down to basics, he articulated the liberal position versus Bork's dissent.
So actually there are pretty good reasons to care about what he thinks.
[suck it.]
Poor misguided soul ...
The visceral, reptilian part of my brain agrees with Stabone; why even listen to this man who did so much harm over a "family values" issue a decade ago?
The conscious part of my brain (whatever of it remains) believes in redemption, contrition and forgiveness. If the good Brother Starr has really seen the light, let him work overtime for our righteous causes. Welcome him into our loving arms.
Let's get him to help us kick the shit out of the Neanderthals who think Latinas with empathy have no place on their hard, unforgiving White Male federal courts.
As Jack Clark says on "Blast the Right", let's forgive these "poor misguided souls" if they genuinely seek salvation.
yeah, clinton didn't even
yeah, clinton didn't even get jail time! now those guys that prosecuted scooter libby, they spent the taxpayers money most excellently, scooter got time and they didn't waste any resources to find that a crime was committed! that's efficiency!!
There you have it.
There you have it. SotoShill is a stealth Repug. Obama is more than a disappointment he's dangerous.
Neocon Barack?
2-3% of population
extort blackmail bribe
the chosen the superior
perception management
aipac's israel-first dual-nationals
liars or truthers
anthrax cover-up of 911
the non-federal reserve w/no reserves
Ken Starr endorsing Judge
Ken Starr endorsing Judge Sotomayer? How scary!
Ken Starr Supports Sotomayor
Isn't this like Torquemeda coming out for Jesus?
Ken Starr is so EASY to figure out.
tagged as:- result
Ken Starr doesn't say or do ANYTHING unless it is in his self-interest. So how does Starr BENEFIT from Sotomayor becoming a Supreme Court Judge? I'm glad you asked. For if you asked this, you asking the really key question to this story. The answer is simple. Starr has a case coming before the Supreme Court within the next year. He wants the Supreme Court to vote in his favor. The nature of the case is that Starr wants the Supreme Court to eliminate the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) from the control of the SEC. He wants the PCAOB to be controlled by Presidential appointment. Now, Starr knows that Sotomayor is going to be appointed to the Supreme Court anyway. It's a DONE DEAL. But he can BENEFIT by it by saying that he LOVES Sotomayor. Starr also knows that Sotomayor is a vain, self-absorbed person, he is very swayed by flattery. This is due to Sotomayor's inferiority complex. Such complexes are always present in a person he knows that they don't really deserve what they're getting, and of gone waaaaaay behond the Peter Principle. Thus, Sotomayor will remember that Starr gave a big ENDORSEMENT to her, and she will be influenced to vote in Starr's favor when that Supreme Court vote comes up in his case. It's a suble but effective ploy. Give credit where credit is due. Starr is very clever and he has Sotomayer figured out. So now you know the REAL STORY. Now, aren't you glad you asked. (I know what you're thinking: Why isn't this Ralph Adamo guy telling us the news, since he seems to really understand what's going on? Again, I'm glad you asked that question. Unfortunately, the answer is the media doesn't want you to know what really going on. So that's why they won't let me tell you.)
Ralph Adamo
Do you have a website or blog that we all can read for the real news?
REALLY NOW!
Do actually believe your own nonsense???
The more I find out about
The more I find out about both Obama and Sotomayor, the less I like them. Here's another example. To me, it's about the same as if she had been endorsed by both Bush and Cheney.
"...divisive and failed impeachment campaign against Clinton."
"...divisive and failed impeachment campaign against Clinton."
President Clinton was impeached. You can look it up. He was the first and only elected President ever impeached.
It's alright for David Corn to editorialize, but he should ground his opinion in fact.
Too true. It was not a
Too true. It was not a "faiiled impeachment" but a "failed witch-hunt" that spelled the beginning of the end for the party of Foley and Craig (who were both like braying junkyard dogs during the Clinton/Contract on America imbroglio.
well, that's what I figured
This can't be a good sign.
Based on the way Obama has been behaving, I'm afraid that if Starr is doing this endorsement to curry future favor, he just might get it. Everyone else has so far, and the health insurance industry will be next.
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayer
Unfortunately the current composition of the Supreme Court has resulted in a string of decisions that are hostile to even the most fundamental of enumerated rights and appear to be supportive of an authoritarian corporate ruled police-state. Whether it's Justice Antonin Scalias specious contention that torture is not cruel or unusual punishment, Justice Clarence Thomas's contention that it is OK to knock prisoner's teeth out while they are in handcuffs (there was a New York Times editorial earlier in his career on the youngest cruelest justice), Justice Samuel Alito's total disregard of the exclusionary rule and hostility to the most fundamental rights of privacy intended to be preserved with the 4th Amendment, or Justice Roberts' specious argument that the 6th Amendment due process rights are best left to the States (contrary to the specificity in both the body of the Constitution and in the 14th Amendment that the enumerated individual rights in the Federal Constitution were the bare minimums which could not be denied by any State), it is apparent that even a centrist Supreme Court appointment would be better than allowing the current crew to keep piling on oppressive precedents. Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayer is, it would seem, not an aggressive defender of the Bill of Rights, but I suspect she could at least both take and administer an oath of office "...to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States..." without flubbing it. I can only hope her appointment was not more of a compromise with totalitarians than we are already aware.
Sotomayor Picked to Lobby The Right-Wing Justices
Aside from the obvious demographic issues Sotomayor's appointment finally addresses...
Obama felt he needed someone who could
=== get through confirmation with a minimum of hassle during his very busy first year
=== be so centrist, even corporatist, that she makes the Republicans who resist her seem like hysterical fools
=== grease the skids for his next appointee, who will be more conspicuously liberal
=== lobby the right-wing "justices" and scoot them a little more towards center
We know she will become more truly herself once on the bench. The question is, who is she? Will she shed her conservative habits and become a staunch support of human Americans, instead of our corporate "citizens"? Or will she become even more conservative and corporate-oriented that she has been so far?
Someone (not just me, please!) needs to be bold about her "wise Latina woman" comment and say,
"YES! It WOULD be fair for a white man to say 'a wise white man could make a better decision' if, in fact, 106 of our 110 past Justices had been Latina women and a white man's voice had NEVER EVER been heard in the Supreme Court chambers. But since the opposite is the case, Sotomayor was right to say what she said, and anyone interpreting her remarks as racist is being wilfully obtuse."
Brian77: Andrew Johnson
Brian77:
Andrew Johnson (1865-69) ws the 1st President to be impeached.
Sounds like you need grounding in facts.
ELECTED
Read what Brian77 wrote. Andrew Johnson was not elected President. He assumed the office after Lincoln's assassination.
If you're going to make a snide remark, be sure that you're correct.
so, if ken starr supports
so, if ken starr supports her doesn't that tell you that, like the president who nominated her, she's likely to disappoint and disillusion deeply?
Can't judge a book by it's litigation history
I am always willing to be suprised, but it seems almost un-suprising now that some many ex-republican elected officiials are parting ways with their old positions. It would have been hard to imagine this in 1998.
New problems require new thinking not just about the problems, but about the people who are working on them.
Is this surprising given
Is this surprising given that Karl Rove chose her for the Appeals Court?
I have been waiting for the progressive press to pick up on this. Her record is skimpy, like the President's. But as far as we know, Obama was not chosen by a cabal in the West Wing during the Bush administration, and Sotomayor was.
We have just witnessed one of the great propaganda successes of all time, a kind of reverse-Rove. Rove used to catch the opposition by surprise by attacking his opponent's strengths.
The Obama administration, in contrast, is allowing the right wing flack machine to criticize his pick to such a degree that every progressive on Earth feels honor bound to support her regardless of her judicial temperment.
In fact, we live in an America where the President needs the Republicans -- who by their loud and inane yammering give credibility to his picks for sensitive positions.
Who knows what Sotomayor will be like on the Supreme Court? One hopes she is not an Alito in a skirt, but who knows? The progressive press has wasted all of its energies defending her rather than subjecting her record to the scrutiny it deserves.
Given the sorry state of the Supreme Court, which has had a virtual 9-0 record against working people for a generation, I was counting on Obama to select from the best and brightest among our legal elite.
All we know about Sotomayor is that she does not have the reputation that a top law professor or (my personal favorite) Hillary Clinton would have had.
Karl Rove did what now? She
Karl Rove did what now? She was put on the appeals court by Clinton before Karl Rove ever left Texas. She was nominated to the trial court by George Bush at the recommendation of Daniel Moynihan. Get real.
Stealth republicans?
I second the notion that Ken Starr's opinions of Sotomayor are about as important as Dick Cheney's opinions on particle physics.
At the same time, I find the notion that this means that Obama and Sotomayor are stealth republicans to be more than a little paranoid.
If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.
Will Sotomayor be to Obama what Souter was to HW?
From her record on the bench Sotomayor appears to take Stare decisis very seriously. She may be a liberal at heart but in her judicial history we see rulings that are very narrow in scope.
I fear that if we are hoping for another Souter, let alone a flaming liberal, we may be disappointed. Starr's endorsement is simply confirmation of this view.
___
Web Design in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Web Development
BriAN77
President Clinton was impeached. You can look it up. He was the first and only elected President ever impeached.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Wrong, Andrew Johnson was the first President to be impeached and Richard Nixon resigned after articles of impeachment were drawn up. He is probably the only one who was actually guilty of a real crime.
Starr on Sotomayor ...
Conventional wisdom has it that we become more conservative as we grow older. That hasn't been true in my case. Is it possible that Ken Starr is growing into a progressive, or at least a civil libertarian? One can only hope.
Ken Starr endorsement kiss of death?
Given previous years' brouhaha involving the Starr name, is that really the kind of endoresement that a person wants to have to help support their professional career? What is this, the National Ambulance Chaser Semifinals? What kind of fraud are these people planning, anyway?
Klaatu marachas necktie
" How will Rush Limbaugh,
" How will Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and other conservatives who have tried to depict Sotomayor as a race-obsessed liberal activist take this news?"
Simple - they will ignore it. Keeping their audience ignorant allows them to continue to spew their propaganda, facts be damned!
star endorses sotomayor
Given Sotomayor's prosecutorial and corporate experience I only suspect she may be a snake in the grass, but when a real snake in the grasss hisses an endorsement for her I am now on heighten alert to grave danger..Sssssssssssssssssssss