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--Michael Muskal / @latimesmuskal in Los Angeles

Sotomayor hearings: Day 2 promises fireworks as senators begin questioning President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee

The second day of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court will begin in about half an hour. Expect some tough questioning from the committee’s Republicans, who made it clear Monday that they have concerns about how Sotomayor applies the law.

“I will not vote for — no senator should vote for — an individual nominated by any president who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their own personal background, gender, prejudices, or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of, or against, parties before the court,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said.

Not surprisingly, committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont took an opposite view. “I would trust that all members of this committee here today will reject the efforts of partisans and outside pressure groups that have sought to create a caricature of Judge Sotomayor while belittling her record, her achievements and her intelligence. Let no one demean this extraordinary woman,” he said.

If Monday’s opening session felt a bit, well, canned, there was good reason. No one asked questions, and it was not a day for improvisation. One by one, the 19 senators read their prepared opening statements, followed eventually by Sotomayor. 

Today, however, promises to be different. Senators will begin questioning the New York judge, and The Ticket will bring you continual news updates, along with commentary and analysis. So stay tuned. The proceedings begin shortly.

We'll be live-blogging right here again throughout her testimony.

-- Steve Padilla

As Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor looks on, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. greets her family on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 14, 2009, prior to the start of her confirmation hearing before the committee. Seated, from left are, her stepfather Omar Lopez, her mother Celina Sotomayor and her brother Juan Sotomayor. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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Why Obama's sudden news conference today? And what he'll say

You don't need to be a basketball-loving president of the United States to know that if you're trying to block opponents' shots in your end, you sure aren't increasing your own totals. You can't score points on D.

So President Obama's news conference this morning is his bid to steal the ball from his opponents and scoot down the court for his own layup. It's a classic political reset of the play clock. At 9:30 a.m. Pacific (12:30 p.m. Eastern, 4:30 p.m. GMT), Obama will make a statement in the White House Rose Garden and then take questions.

Obama has lost some mojo in recent days on this month's pressing issues, especially Iran's ongoing protests and healthcare reform. Obama's printed Saturday statement about Iran on his way out the White House door for ice cream with his daughters was insufficient media competition for the appallingly graphic video of the young woman Neda dying on a Tehran street. Some called the presidential statement ineffective and "mealy-mouthed."

On Father's Day, while the president played golf out of camera-sight, others were on TV declaring the U.S. must say more to support the unarmed protesters in Iran.

Here's the scary thing for the new White House: the terrifying words "Jimmy Carter" have started appearing in print and on the air, recalling the ex-Georgia governor's ineptness and....

Obama news conference: 'Waterboarding is torture'

In answer to a question about waterboarding and whether it violates the Geneva Conventions, Obama is unequivocal: “Waterboarding is torture.”

He adds: “Waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe it’s torture. That is not just my opinion; it’s the opinion of many who have examined the topic.”

He offers a history lesson to bolster his view:

We could have gotten information in ways that are consistent with our values, with who we are. I was struck by an article I was reading the other day; the British in World War II when London was being bombed to smithereens … Churchill said, we don’t torture. 

When the entire British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat, and the reason was that Churchill understood: you start taking short cuts over time that erodes what’s best in the people, it erodes the character of a country.

I strongly believe the steps that we’ve taken to prevent these kinds of enhanced interrogations techniques will … make us stronger over the long term.

Part of what makes us still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.  At the same time it takes away a critical recruitment tool that Al Quaeda has used to try to demonize the United States and justify killing civilians.

-- Robin Abcarian

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Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Oooh, Meghan McCain's kinda touchy about her resume -- and got it wrong

Stipulation: Meghan McCain is a refreshing political personality to watch who is her own self. And might be trying to prove it a little too hard.

These days she's doing some blogging over at the DailyBeast. But it seems somebody (apparently a fellow Beast part-timer) wrote somewhere that Ms. McCain has yet to accomplish much in her privileged life. Which prompted her to respond. And respond. And respond.

And respond.

Using her Twitter account, which limits users to 140-character messages, McCain produced a lengthy series of angry Tweets -- some using the #$%&!* word.

They detailed her numerous life activities starting with volunteer tutoring at 16 and helping receive flowers at a hospital desk and internships and moving up through writing a children's book and founding "my multi-award-winning website mccainblogette.com, which is officially the first blog in history to document a presidential campaign." (Her father's, of course.)

Wonkette.com has posted screen grabs of the Meghan missives right here and ID'd the target.

But, as Gawker.com leapt to point out, that claim isn't quite exactly precisely true, since the Kerry-Edwards campaign had one five years ago, likely among others.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Getty Images

Full text of Barack Obama's online town hall meeting

At least some Americans may have actually been working in paid employment during President Obama's pioneering online town hall meeting. He promises more such participatory presidential interrogations.

The Ticket took an anticipatory look at these pioneering presidential forum earlier today right here and then an examination of how the Obama online town hall came off right here. And our blogging buddy David Sarno examines what the president said about marijuana over here on the Technology blog.

Meanwhile, here's what was asked and said this time:

Text of the President's Online Town Hall Meeting, The White House, March 26, 2009, 11:39 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. Well, it is great to see all of you. And I am thrilled that all of you here in the White House and everybody who is viewing this online is participating in this experiment that we're trying out. When I was running for President, I promised to open up the White House to the American people. 

And this event, which is being streamed live over the Internet, marks an important step towards achieving that goal.  And I'm looking forward to taking your questions and hearing your thoughts and concerns -- because what matters to you and your families, and what people here in Washington are focused on, aren't always one and the same thing.

Here in Washington, politics all too often is treated like a game.  There's a lot of point scoring, a lot of talk about who's up and who's down, a lot of time and energy spent on whether the President is winning or losing on this particular day or this particular hour.  But this isn't about me. It's about you.

It's about the folks whose letters I read every single day.  And for the American people, what's going on is not a game.  What matters to you is how you're going to find a new job when nobody seems to be hiring or how to pay medical bills after you get out of the hospital or how to put your children through college when the money you'd put away for their tuition is no longer there.

That's what matters to you.  That's what you expect your leaders to be focused on.  And that's why I've been working to deliver the changes you sent me here to make; to ensure that we're not only making it through this crisis, but come out on the other side stronger and more prosperous as a nation over the long term. That's the future that I believe is within our reach. 

But that future will not come about on its own.  It will come because we all, every single one of us, from Main Street to the halls of Congress, do what generations of Americans have done in times of trial; because we remember that at heart we are one nation, and one people, and united by a bond that no division of party or ideology can break; because we come together as Americans to choose that better day.

And that's what we've already begun to do.  We, as a nation, have already begun the critical work that will lead to our economic recovery.  It's a recovery that will be measured by whether jobs are being created and families have more money to pay their bills at the end of each month.  That's why we're preventing teachers and police officers from being laid off, and putting Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges and dams, creating or saving 3.5 million jobs in the coming years.

And that's why we're putting a tax cut into the pockets of 95% of working families who will see it -- see that tax cut in their paycheck by April 1st.

It's a recovery that will be measured by whether families can achieve that most American of dreams, and own a home without fear of losing it.  That's why we've launched a plan to stabilize the housing market and help responsible homeowners stay in their homes. 

This plan is one of the reasons that mortgage interest rates are now at near-historic lows.  And we've already seen a jump in refinancings of mortgages, and homeowners taking advantage of lower rates.  And every American, by the way, should know that up to 40 percent of all mortgages right now are eligible for refinancing.

It's a recovery that will be measured by whether families and entrepreneurs can get the loans they need.  That's why we're freeing up credit that's frozen with a program that supports the....

Obama news conference: What to say to a homeless child?

What, the president was asked, would he say to a homeless child?

President Obama said that his message would be simple — that he is “heartbroken” that any child in America has to be without a home. That’s why, he added, the most important thing he can do is to fix the economy and put parents back to work.

That answer — that the economy is the “most important thing” — is coming up again and again during tonight’s White House news conference. No surprise, really. It’s what the press wants to talk about (have all those reporters been checking their 401ks?), and Obama too.

Obama is known for being deliberative -- he doesn’t just start talking. That was clear during one neat moment tonight.

When one reporter pressed the president on why he didn’t express outrage earlier on the AIG mess, Obama replied: “It took a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”

What a concept. Talk about bringing change to Washington.

-- Steve Padilla

Obama news conference: President pledges to help Mexico fight drug cartels

Finally, a non-economic question.

A reporter with Univision asked President Obama about efforts by the U.S. to combat the growing violence unleashed in Mexico by drug cartels. Does the president consider such violence a threat to U.S. security?

"Let’s focus on what we did today," Obama replied, citing an announcement today by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. As our colleague Josh Meyer reported earlier today: "The Obama administration this morning unveiled an ambitious multi-agency plan to help Mexico attack the growing problems created by powerful Mexican drug cartels, vowing to send U.S. money, manpower and technology to the southwestern border as soon as possible."

Obama also had praise for Mexican President Felipe Calderon, calling him "courageous" for his efforts to fight the cartels.

-- Steve Padilla

President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference, Tuesday, March 24, 2009, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Obama news conference: Economic recovery 'will take time'

It's well-known that President Obama is an admirer of Abraham Lincoln. The nation's 16th president is clearly a favorite of Obama's speechwriters, such as Jon Favreau, based on the remarks Obama just delivered in his second White House press conference.

Lincoln gave us the immortal line about "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Which might explain the repeated (pardon the pun) use of repetition in the president's remarks. On rebuilding the economy, the president said (with emphasis added):

That’s what clean-energy jobs and businesses will do. That’s what a highly skilled workforce will do. That’s what an efficient healthcare system that controls costs and entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid will do. That’s why this budget is inseparable from this recovery –- because it is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity.

And he wasn't done. Not done at all, as he offered these encouraging words:

We will recover from this recession. But it will take time, it will take patience, and it will take an understanding that when we all work together, when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interests to the wider set of obligations we have to each other -– that’s when we succeed. That’s when we prosper. And that’s what is needed right now. So let us look toward the future with a renewed sense of common purpose, a renewed determination, and most importantly, a renewed confidence that a better day will come.

-- Steve Padilla

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a prime time news conference in the East Room of the White House March 24, 2009 in Washington, DC. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Obama news conference: President says his budget will help prevent future woes

You've got to spend money to make money. Or at least to get the country out of recession.

That's the gist of some of President Obama's prepared remarks he's delivering right now in his second White House news conference. "Spend," however, is not the word of choice. According to the president, the key is to "invest."

An example:

The budget I submitted to Congress will build our economic recovery on a stronger foundation, so that we do not face another crisis like this 10 or 20 years from now. We invest in the renewable sources of energy that will lead to new jobs, new businesses, and less dependence on foreign oil.

We invest in our schools and our teachers so that our children have the skills they need to compete with any workers in the world. We invest in reform that will bring down the cost of healthcare for families, businesses and our government. And in this budget, we have made the tough choices necessary to cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term –- even under the most pessimistic estimates.

And in case you didn't get the point, Obama has more to say about investing:

At the end of the day, the best way to bring our deficit down in the long run is not with a budget that continues the very same policies that have led to a narrow prosperity and massive debt. It’s with a budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest.

-- Steve Padilla

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