Sotomayor hearings: The judge's own opening statement -- full text

Opening Statement by Judge Sonia Sotomayor before the Senate Judiciary Committee, July 13, 2009,
as prepared for delivery

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I also want to thank Senators Schumer and Gillibrand for that kind introduction. In recent weeks, I have had the privilege and pleasure of meeting eighty-nine gracious Senators, including all the members of this Committee. I thank you for the time you have spent with me.  Our meetings have given me an illuminating tour of the fifty states and invaluable insights into the American people.

There are countless family members, friends, mentors, colleagues, and clerks who have done so much over the years to make this day possible. I am deeply appreciative for their love and support.   I want to make one special note of thanks to my mom.  I am here today because of her aspirations and sacrifices for both my brother Juan and me.  Mom, I love that we are sharing this together.   I am very grateful to the President and humbled to be here today as a nominee to the United States Supreme Court.  

The progression of my life has been uniquely American.  My parents left Puerto Rico during World War II.  I grew up in modest circumstances in a Bronx housing project.  My father, a factory worker with a third grade education, passed away when I was nine years old. 

On her own, my mother raised my brother and me. She taught us that the key to success in America is a good education.  And she set the example, studying alongside my brother and me at our kitchen table so that she could become a registered nurse.  We worked hard. 

I poured myself into my studies at Cardinal Spellman High School, earning scholarships to Princeton University and then Yale Law School, while my brother went to medical school.  Our achievements are due to the values that we learned as children, and they have continued to guide my life’s endeavors.  I try to pass on this legacy by serving as a mentor and friend to my many godchildren and students of all backgrounds.

Over the past three decades, I have seen our judicial system from a number of different perspectives – as a big-city prosecutor, a corporate litigator, a trial judge and an appellate judge.  My first job after law school was....

Weekly remarks: Obama still clearing wreckage; Cantor asks, where are the jobs?

This week's weekly remarks open with President Obama in Africa opening on foreign affairs. But by the second paragraph out of 20, he gets to what he really wants -- needs -- to talk about: domestic business in general and the economy specifically.

His polls numbers have slipped, especially among seniors and even independents. People still like him a lot (though they now like his wife better).

But they're increasingly worried about some of his programs and these numbers with more digits than civilian calculators can display -- all the spending and unemployment still growing, reform of healthcare that some 70% of Americans are satisfied with now.

You can tell what White House polling has told them by the subjects ticked off in Obama's remarks: We inherited this mess, the economic stimulus bill so urgently pushed in February wasn't really designed to fix the economy, and the switching of terms about jobs. It used to be about creating and/or preserving jobs. Now, preserving jobs comes first, which, like murders not committed, is difficult to prove or disprove without numbers. Which is the point.

Be patient, Obama urges, more spending will kick in this summer. I promise healthcare reforms won't add to the deficit. We're cutting waste. We need clean energy. Etc.

The Republican remarks, provided this week by Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, are in many ways the mirror image.

They see their own poll numbers. It's been six months; the economy belongs to Obama now. Where are the promised jobs? Unemployment at 9.5% is already higher than the 8.5% the administration promised as max. The stimulus bill was larded with pork. We can't afford all this spending and borrowing. The federal government this year alone has borrowed $10Gs for economic stimulus from every American family. Do you feel better knowing that?

This is an argument we will all hear in varying forms from now until next year's midterm elections, when the White House party historically takes a hit in Congress.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Click here for Twitter alerts on each new Ticket item. Or follow us   @latimestot

Weekly remarks of President Obama, July 11, 2009

This week, we’ve made important progress toward the goal of bringing about change abroad and change at home. During my visit to Russia, we began the process of resetting relations so that we can address key national priorities like the threat of nuclear weapons and extremism. At the G-8 summit, leaders from nearly 30 nations met to discuss how we will collectively confront the urgent challenges of our time, from managing the global recession to fighting global warming to addressing global hunger and poverty. And in Ghana [see arrival photo below], I laid out my agenda for supporting democracy and development in Africa and around the world.

But even as we make progress on these challenges abroad, my thoughts are on the state of our economy at home. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today. 

We came into office facing the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. At the time, we were losing, on average, 700,000 jobs a month. And many feared that our financial system was on the verge of collapse. 

As a result of the swift and aggressive action we took in the first few months of this year, we’ve been able to pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink. We took steps to restart . . .

Guys! Quick! Hubby Obama needs some help 'splaining that photo

(UPDATE: Oops. Now another peekaboo pic has shown up. Different woman. Same angle. Same two guys. Over here.)

OK, let's help the poor guy out here. It's a bipartisan gender solidarity thing.

Yes, yes, he's president of the United States of America. The most powerful male in the free world, perhaps le monde entier. Pretty wife. Great abs. Loving father. And a real good talker.

He better be 'cause, as they fly down to Africa right now, Mrs. Obama with the buff bare arms may be asking her hubby one or two questions about this photo that's been flying all over the world ahead of them for a day now. Just as Desi Arnaz would ask his wife in the old "Lucy" show.

On the surface it might possibly appear to some jealous people that the 47-year-old ex-senator from Illinois is eyeing the working backside of Mayara Rodriguez Tavares, a 17-year-old youth delegate from Buenos Aires, no, wait, Brazil at the G-8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy. (And President Nicolas Sarkozy is checking it out too. But he's French.)

Such a suspicion about the nation's male chief executive is absolutely ridiculous, of course, and relies on the tired, old -- and patently erroneous -- sexist cliche about men having a roving eye for the opposite sex, even when they may already be in the company of a member of same said opposite gender.

There have, over the eons, been billions of misunderstandings like this between women and their men when the female followed the man's eyes and perceived them to be glued on some portion of another female's anatomy, back or front. It even happened in cave days when folks wore skimpy animal pelts. That's an Internet fact.

Those patently mistaken female impressions of visual infidelity have led to some verbal outbursts, punched arms, swung purses and long silences in the car followed by a night on the living room couch.

If the offended women would only wait one sec, they could learn the real honest-to-God object of their male's admiration. Most often, the male doesn't even know what other woman his lady is talking about. He was simply admiring a really attractive red sports car that was passing in the same spot but is now unfortunately out of sight.

The car one won't work this time. But there are other obfuscating explanations. Maybe the president had a speck in his eye -- it can happen to presidents anytime even with the Secret Service around -- and was looking down to try and get it out. Could be.

Also, as Ticket reader Tom points out, she does have great shoes.

The most innocent excuse or explanation is that the president was in the process of turning his head to thoughtfully take the hand of his life partner and help her safely down the last large step there so she wouldn't trip and embarrass herself with all the cameras around. What a guy! Chivalry lives!

And those European cameramen -- you know them -- cleverly snapped the photo to make it appear like he was looking at the long curly, brown hair and the female derriere in shiny red material that he hadn't even actually noticed was there. In fact, was there a woman there?

It's all perfectly innocent. So help him out, guys -- or gals. What other explanation can we helpfully offer the first man?

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photos of other male presidential encounters with derrieres below.

Click here for Twitter alerts on each new Ticket item. Or follow us  @latimestot

Joe Biden update: No 'private meetings,' just meetings closed to the press

Possibly a very important policy change quietly emerged in the daily schedule of Vice President Joe Biden today.

Loyal Ticket readers know that, as a patriotic duty, we monitor the longtime senator's schedule with a close eye for detail because, after all, this man is only a heartbeat away from having to give a toast at a G-8 summit. We've especially noted Biden's innumerable  "private meetings" that are closed to the press because, well, they're private.

And we've wondered aloud how this Democratic VP's private meetings with unnamed people on unnamed subjects differs from the private meetings with unnamed people that his evil predecessor had that got so many Democratic senators and representatives worried about nefarious secrets.

On one recent long weekend, the man who became a Delaware senator when his future boss, Barack Obama, was an inexperienced fundraiser of only 11, devoted an entire Monday to "private meetings" that are closed press in his Delaware home.

If that isn't dedication for the $208,000 salary.

Well, today's schedule, unlike many at the end of Biden's work weeks, contains no "private meetings." Not one.

Having spent Thursday traveling and successfully selling the nation on the so far hard-to-detect effects of the $787-billion Obama administration economic stimulus spending plan that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave them, Biden will show up for work around 11 today.

He'll join Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a roundtable to discuss only the rising costs of healthcare for people who own or work for small businesses. One suspects the absent president's ambitious plan to spend billions more to impose his healthcare reforms might also be mentioned.

OK, so figure an hour for the roundtable, maybe 75 minutes max. You can only talk about that stuff so long before requiring healthcare yourself. Fifteen minutes for handshaking, cellphone photos and congratulations on the excellent roundtable. The VP should be outta there by 12:30.

That leaves -- what? -- five, maybe six hours to make it a seven-hour workday.

According to the White House schedule, Biden will not spend the remainder of the workday in private meetings that are closed press.

Instead: "The Vice President will spend the remainder of the day in meetings that are closed press."

You get the difference, right?

(Friday UPDATE 7 p.m.: According to the VP's weekend schedule, if you need to reach him about the stimulus plan or something, both days he will be in Delaware where "There are no public events scheduled." No public mention of private meetings.)

-- Andrew Malcolm

Twitter alerts on each new Ticket item are open to the press or anyone simply by clicking here. Or follow us   @latimestot

Photo: Getty Images

Bye-bye Burris: Obama's tainted Senate replacement won't run in 2010

(UPDATE: As predicted Burris did announce Friday that he will not seek election in 2010.)

If you were thinking of running for Barack Obama's old U.S. Senate seat from Illinois but were holding off because of incumbent Roland Burris' intention to run next year, change of plans.

Looks like on Friday afternoon in Chicago, a time designed to minimize public attention, the 71-year-old Democratic veteran of Illinois' bare-knuckles brand of politics will announce he's decided not to run in 2010. Purely his own choice, of course. And all for the better of his state.

The first clue actually came when Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, now indicted for trying to auction off his nomination to fill the new president's vacant Senate chair, chose Burris as one of his final official acts before impeachment.

That tainted nomination, initially resisted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his No. 2, Dick Durbin, also of Illinois (see smiley photo above), eventually went through after a face-saving song-and-dance ...

Michelle Obama tops hubby Barack in popularity, new poll finds, but...

And now some politically/socially revealing numbers from a plethora of polls:

While her husband's popularity takes a summertime dip, First Lady Michelle Obama's favorability ratings among Americans climb high.

According to a new online Harris Poll of 2,177 Americans, after nearly six months of an Obama administration, more than two-thirds (68%) give her a thumbs-up while less than one-third (32%) disapprove. In comparison, after nearly six years in the White House Laura Bush had a 64% approval and a 36% disapproval.

This compares with President Obama's recent ratings in a similar Harris Poll showing his popularity dipping from 59% to 54% while his disapproval rose from 41% to 46%. On the economy Michelle's partner fared even worse, with just 43% now approving of his handling of the economy and 57% disapproving.

That's understandable. Starting a White House vegetable garden and telling schoolchildren to work hard for good grades while being a poised fashion icon is somewhat less controversial than the president trying to explain a national unemployment rate soaring past the maximum his administration precisely predicted last winter, despite billions in stimulus spending.

Three-quarters of Americans (77%) think the first lady is a positive influence on her husband; 84% of women think so while 69% of men agree. But even a majority of....

Right idea, wrong mountain for GOP candidate in Colorado

The Democrats have Vice President Joe Biden for gaffe laughs. Now the Republicans in Colorado have a candidate wrestling with an all-too-familiar PR scandal in his scenic home state: not being able to recognize his own state's mountains.

It's the sort of gaffe possibly unique to a state with more than a dozen distinct mountain ranges. First it was former congressman Bob Schaffer, whose initial ad in an unsuccessful U.S. Senate race last year touted his Colorado loyalty by noting that he proposed to his wife atop Pikes Peak.

The problem: The ad flashed an image of Alaska's Mt. McKinley.

Now it's former congressman Scott McInnis, who hopes to become the GOP's gubernatorial nominee next year. His Web page debuted with a striking image of snow-capped peaks. Problem is, the peaks look like none in Colorado. The slip-up was unearthed by the political junkies at ColoradoPols.com (who, like many Coloradans, seem to be a bit mountain-mad as well).

They determined the image is actually of the Canadian Rockies. The McInnis campaign swiftly replaced it with a photo of the Flatirons, iconic peaks that loom over the left-leaning town of Boulder. Blame Google Images, said spokesman Mike Hesse.

Getting a mountain photo wrong isn't really all that hard to do. See more not-Colorado mountains in photo above.

A young McInnis volunteer searched the Web for "Colorado Rockies" and got the Canadian image instead.

Staffers had been warned to make sure all images were 100% Colorado. "We're aware this had happened before and we told them to be very careful of that," Hesse said. "It was a hiccup. Overall I'm delighted with the website and we're moving forward."

-- Nicholas Riccardi

Don't miss one single incorrect photo. Click here for Twitter alerts on each new Ticket item. Or follow us   @latimestot  

Photo: AustrianAlpsInfo.com

It's always the media's fault; Robert McNamara talked about Vietnam

As The Ticket reported earlier, John F. Kennedy's secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, died today at 93. He was a key architect of the disastrous U.S. military involvement in Vietnam who later admitted his mistakes.

In this C-SPAN archive video from 1995, McNamara discusses with Brian Lamb the role of the often-attacked media in that Southeast Asian conflict, specifically about whether the critical American press coverage caused the loss. It's worth a listen in light of subsequent events.

-- Andrew Malcolm

For Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item, click here. Or follow us @latimestot

Photo: U.S. Air Force

Video: C-SPAN

Joe Biden update: Private phone calls followed by private meetings

 

With President Obama far away in Russia today, Vice President Joe Biden won't be showing up for work until around noon, according to his official schedule.

Just back himself from a holiday-weekend trip overseas to Iraq, Biden saw some Iraqi leaders, a sandstorm and some U.S. troops, including his son Beau, who's scheduled to take over the Biden family Senate seat in Delaware after the November 2010 election.

Today, Biden's schedule starts at 12 p.m. with some secret phone calls with governors and mayors around the country about the administration's economic stimulus plan that has so far stimulated unemployment way beyond the rate its officials predicted last winter.

We won't know exactly what the vice president and those he is conversing with say because these conference calls are closed to the media. (UPDATE: After the two stimulus calls, the White House said the following officials participated: Democrat Govs. Chet Culver of Iowa and Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Republican Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Rick Perry of Texas and Jodi Rell of Connecticut.

Another call involved Mayors Dave Bing of Detroit, Joey Durel of Lafayette, La., Ashley Swearingen of Fresno and Charlie Tomlinson of Corvallis, Or and Whatcom County Executive Pete Kremen in Washington state.)

However, because this is the most transparent presidential administration in national history, after these private phone calls, Biden's schedule calls for him to spend the rest of the day in "private meetings." These are also closed to the media. So no one knows who they are with or what the subjects of conversation are.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Click here in private or public to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot.

Photo: Getty Images

Russian TV grills Obama on heroes, favorite movie, his nice wife

OK, in Russia you're not supposed to ask national leaders tough questions; it's part of an informal program to help journalists protect their own health. So why do differently with the brand-new American President Barack Obama? He arrives in Moscow today with Michelle for only his second visit there and first face-to-face with the real Russian power-that-is, Vladimir Putin.

So no questions on sticky healthcare reform costs or why the U.S. unemployment rate is already so much higher than his administration said it would go or how come the stimulus spending is taking so long or whether it'll even work at all. Leave that for most American reporters to not ask about.

But a nice little softball chatty TV interview to make the Democrat feel at home  and introduce Obama to Russian viewers. You'll never guess what Obama likes least about himself. (Hint: He did it again this weekend out of camera sight.)

We'll have to ask this president later what he saw when he looked deep into former KGB spyboss Putin's eyes/soul. (What do you see in the eyes above?)

-- Andrew Malcolm

Speaking of soul, go inside politics every day with Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item by clicking here. Or follow us @latimestot

President Obama interview with Russia ITAR-TASS/ROSSIYA TV 

Q   Mr. President, thank you very much for having us today. 

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks.

Q  It's your first interview for the Russian media.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q   And it will be on air in TV Channel Russia on the 4th of July. Congratulations, sir.

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you so much. Thank you very much, and I'm very much looking forward to visiting Russia on Monday.

Q   You're leaving for Russia and it will be your second time there. What's your personal sense of Russia?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I had a wonderful time when we visited both Moscow and Perm -- this was several years ago. I was traveling as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, interested in issues of nuclear proliferation. The people were very warm; we had a wonderful reception. I had a wonderful time visiting Red Square and the Kremlin. 

I think that traveling there as President obviously is very different, and now those issues that I was interested in as a senator -- of nuclear proliferation, how we can reduce tensions and conflicts between our countries -- I'm in a position, hopefully, to get more accomplished than my first visit.

Q  And what we in Russia can expect from the new American leader?  How you see the role of the Russia in the world?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, Russia is a great country with an extraordinary culture and....