Will GOP Senators Defend Right-Wing Ad Calling Sotomayor The Leader Of A Terrorist Group?
Will GOP Senators Defend Right-Wing Ad Calling Sotomayor The Leader Of A Terrorist Group?
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a member of the Judiciary Committee, was a featured guest at a Georgetown fundraiser for the Committee for Justice in 2003. According to the New York Times, the event raised at least $50,000 for the right-wing group that is responsible for the recent Sotomayor slime piece. The attack ad makes the claim that Judge Sonia Sotomayor “led a group supporting violent Puerto Rican terrorists.” It attempts to link Sotomayor to “Obama’s buddy Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist who bombed American buildings in the seventies.” Watch it:
The right-wing group also has other ties to GOP Senators. CFJ’s Chairman of the Board worked on John McCain’s presidential campaign as a “Director of Conservative Outreach.” In 2003, a CFJ ad led Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to characterize CFJ as a “partisan hate group.” In response, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) defended CFJ and its ad on the Senate floor:
There has been an awful lot of railing about this ad by the Committee for Justice. It has a courthouse chambers with a little sign on it, and the sign says ‘Catholics need not apply.’ Isn’t this a legitimate commentary on how people feel about what is happening here? You can agree or disagree, and say it is not a really an accurate statement if you want to. I say it is legitimate commentary.
Are Sessions, Hatch, and their conservative colleagues still willing to defend the Committee for Justice and argue that it is “legitimate commentary” to imply Sotomayor is a terrorist?
TP’s Ian Millhiser is live-blogging today’s hearings. Check out his coverage here.
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July 15th, 2009 at 1:01 pmSessions will, namely because he fails to see how drawing attention to his racist views might harm him. Hatch and others are probably smart enough to know that the kind of media attention this hearing brings is impetus enough to distance themselves from the ad.
Expect the non-apology apology.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:04 pmWill GOP Senators Defend Right-Wing Ad Calling Sotomayor The Leader Of A Terrorist Group?
Why would they do anything differently at this point?
Is anyone watching the Sotomayor hearings? Race-baiting has been the Republican agenda for the last two days.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:05 pmThis tells you how desperate the Republican Party has become. The majority of Americans believe Sotomoyer is more than qualified and able to be a SC Justice. Didn’t these guys learn in 2006 and 2008 that Americans don’t buy this Bullsh*t fear mongering crap? Looks like you can’t teach old white dogs new tricks.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:05 pmWhen ads like this are run, it is clear the goal is to preemptively discredit Sotomayor’s eventual rulings, because no one could possibly think this would be a convincing ad/argument to drum up enough public outrage to tank her nomination.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:06 pmStart handing out the shovels, the GOP looks like they want to dig their hole bigger and deeper.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:07 pmRepublicans love lies.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:09 pmWill GOP Senators Defend Right-Wing Ad Calling Sotomayor The Leader Of A Terrorist Group?
– - We can only hope so.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:10 pmOf course they can and will. To call CFJ into question now would require introspection and intellectual honesty. We’re talking Sessions and Hatch here!
Purely rhetorical question, I trust.
PEACE
July 15th, 2009 at 1:13 pmThe end of Vaudeville
July 15th, 2009 at 1:16 pmRethinking tattooed clownface
The show must go on
The GOP seems to be perturbed that Sotomayor is not saying what they want her to say by confessing her sins for being a “reverse racist”.??
Perhaps Sessions and the other Republican senators should simply waterboard Sotomayor. They would probably get her to say whatever they want her to say. Of course, it wouldn’t be the truth, but since when did that matter?
July 15th, 2009 at 1:17 pmIf it’s a GOP congressman named King from either Iowa or NY, you can be sure they are beating the drumhead on this one.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:20 pmHas old, fat, white Chris Matthews asked old, fat, white Pat Buchanan about the ad yet? At least we’ll have the old, fat, white point of view of the ad on record since the old, fat, white view is rarely expressed on the liberal media. /snark
July 15th, 2009 at 1:21 pmJust because it makes you terrified, doesn’t make it a terrorist organization.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:22 pmAren’t the majority of the supreme court justices catholic? I say it is legitimate buffoonery.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:22 pmExcuse me, but that ‘terrorism’ label didn’t work so well for the Republicans in the last election. It’s a tired phrase, even if threats are real, they’ve been boys who cried wolf so often that no one can credit them. They’re just trying to sucker their adherents out of money…
July 15th, 2009 at 1:28 pmAnd Most of the members of the Committee for Justice are part of an organization which supported right-wing terrorists which murdered 168 innocent Americans. Of course, the terrorists are McVeigh and Nichols, and the organization in question is the GOP.
I can say that because McVeigh was a registered Republican. McVeigh being of the GOP means that the GOP, of course, fully supported their actions in Oklahoma City (of course), and that any member of the GOP did the same (of course).
Sheesh…
July 15th, 2009 at 1:30 pmThere are
Most of the Republicans will say nothing about the ad unless they are forced to say something. They are perfectly content to let the Committee for Justice to do the dirty work for the Republicans while disavowing the group. This allows the Republicans to appear to be taking the high road on the nomination.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:33 pmA wise Latina a day, keeps the white male racists away…
July 15th, 2009 at 1:34 pmThe Repubs set the tone when they poked fun at the Purple Heart during the 2004 Republican Convention. They cannot be housetrained.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:38 pmIn the 2003 flap, this hate group accused Patrick Leahy and Dick Durbin, both Catholics, of “anti-Catholic bias”.
I guess we should be grateful that hate groups like these seem to have become so consumed by their vitriol that they’ve lost the ability to even reason out effective strategies for achieving their ends.
The current anti-Sotomayor ad, however, reminds me of the SNL skit that SENATOR Al Franken (D-MN) helped write last fall.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:38 pmThese Sens. took oaths to gain their repective positions and serve their constituents. Were these oaths to The White Citizens Council? The Church of the Latter Day Saints? The Circle? The Repugs should be, but won’t be, asked these questions by the MSM and then called out on their pandering.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:39 pmWhat was the catalyst for the 2003 ad about Durbin and Leahy? I don’t recall this situation…
July 15th, 2009 at 1:47 pmYa know, if a left-wing group wanted to create a parody ad to discredit the critics of Judge Sotomayor using predictable right-wing tactics and rhetoric, they probably would have come pretty close to the ad produced by the CFJ.
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(Incidentally, I published a short-lived humor magazine in the 80s, and one of the pieces focused on group that called itself “Conservatives for Justice”, or CFJ. At the time I found that moniker itself sufficiently ironic to be comic, and I don’t think anything has happened in the intervening twenty years to alter that perception.)
July 15th, 2009 at 1:47 pmThis just goes to show how far the Reich Wingnuts would go out of pure desperation to destroy a judge who is perfectly qualified for the SC. Notice how they disguise the word “sp1c* with the word terrorist in that hate filled ad.
Simply put. The Rethuglikkklans don’t want her as a SC Justice simply because she is a latino.
Their racism has no limits.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:49 pmHatched (R-UT) is a master at obfuscation & hollow implications.
He also a master strawman builder.
Too bad he can’t seem to use any of his skills to contribute to what he was elected to do; support the American majority opinion.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:49 pmI checked the links, and it had to do with a threatened filibuster of an appointment of a Catholic anti-choice figure to a federal judgeship, I think.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:50 pmProud says:
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Why all the thrashing about and whining over Sotomayor, you have the votes to get her confirmed. She will honor the code of the liberals to take the guns and kill the babies. I think you guys need to relax a little bit.
Why do you hate Latinos?
July 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pmI’m Proud to vote down…every time, Proud.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:55 pmAnd you’re ok with Bush murdering babies in a soverign country thousands of miles away, Proud Moron?
Thought so hypocrite.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:56 pmThanks Ralph.
With all the Catholics on the Supreme Court, so many that it gives rise to concerns – valid or not – that the court is a virtual arm of the Vatican, how can Sessions claim with a straight face that “Catholics need not apply” is “legitimate commentary?”
July 15th, 2009 at 1:56 pmZimzone says:
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I’m Proud to vote down…every time, Proud
As am I. :)
July 15th, 2009 at 1:56 pmAt this point, the repubs are so entrenched on this that I see one of 2 apologies.
1) I am sorry if anyone was offended.
2) Yesterday I called her a terrorist. I am apologizing for my remark. I am not saying that my remark was in any way inaccurate. Just I am apologizing for my remark.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:59 pmThis administration has made no move to “take the guns,” with Biden going so far as to characterize more gun control a “non-starter” as an issue. As for killing babies, how many LIVE babies were done away with in the illegal war you neoCons love so much?
July 15th, 2009 at 1:59 pmI thought the same thing. Sotomayor will make six of nine if confirmed — do I have that correct?
Right-wingers miss the fundamental element of discrimination; one must be part of a group that is actually discriminated against in order for the charge to stick.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:00 pmProd is the kind of commenter for whom the “Vote Down” button was designed.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:02 pmO/T
July 15th, 2009 at 2:02 pmI was just driving back from the store and there was an SUV in front of me at a light. On his back window he had a bumper sticker that read “GLOBAL WARMING my ass”. So out of curiosity I wanted to take a look at the person behind the wheel. Wouldn`t you know it, it was an older white guy. Do you think in about two years he will have a sticker that reads Palin for president?
This is more evangelical nastiness. These people want a white-ruling evangelical theocracy in this nation. Anything less is unacceptable to them.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:05 pmThe Moderate Squad says:
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Proud said: She will honor the code of the liberals to take the guns and kill the babies.
This administration has made no move to “take the guns,” with Biden going so far as to characterize more gun control a “non-starter” as an issue. As for killing babies, how many LIVE babies were done away with in the illegal war you neoCons love so much?
And considering that Biden owns a Beretta, why would he support banning guns in the first place?
I’m leaving this question to Proud Moron.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:05 pmI can see trolls like Prod responding one of two ways to the innovation of the “Vote Down” button: either they will try to temper their flatulent remarks with some redeeming value in order to remain a part of the community, or they will go bigger, badder, more outrageous in a sad attempt to get the most impact in the brief half-life afforded their gibberish before it gets stuffed down the garbage disposal.
Which way do you think Prod will go?
July 15th, 2009 at 2:06 pmI have a request. We all seem to like the “vote down” button because it makes racist hateful comments disappear. EXCEPT for when people quote them. That makes them live on. Please don’t quote them if you are going to vote them down. It makes no sense.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:08 pmralph the wonder locust says:
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I can see trolls like Prod responding one of two ways to the innovation of the “Vote Down” button: either they will try to temper their flatulent remarks with some redeeming value in order to remain a part of the community, or they will go bigger, badder, more outrageous in a sad attempt to get the most impact in the brief half-life afforded their gibberish before it gets stuffed down the garbage disposal.
Which way do you think Prod will go?
This is a no-brainer. The latter, of course. That’s all they got left since he obviously has nothing to defend his rhetorical whinery.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:09 pmI meant “he” (Proud). Better yet….. “it”. Typical teabagging rethuglitard.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:11 pmsscncturn64, it’s just another example of a thick-headed right-winger who would actually rather destroy the planet than drive a sensible car. When I was younger, if you saw an SUV it usually had mud splattered all over it and was kinda bare-bones compared to the modern SUVs, because they were designed for people who actually drove them off-road and needed 4-wheel drive and extra clearance. Now the “utility” seems to be nothing more than being a billboard for propaganda.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:12 pmSome of these little trolls are “students” at Liberty University, Bob Jones University and Regents University, those dubious little diploma mills run by the Dominionist dingalings, where nothing but unproven evangelical dogma and cultural silliness is taught.
If you recall, one of their more “illustrious” products was that crazy Monica Goodling, the holy roller barely out school who was heavily involved at the highest levels of the Bush/Cheney Department of Justice – or as Sarah Palin calls it, the Department of Law.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pmJust seeing ProudMorons name is enough. I know from experience any piece of garbage he posts is ignorant like he is. So I just see the name that it is voted down and I dont even have to pollute my eyeballs with the stupid he spews. I can just open him up give him ANOTHER votedown without even reading his BS.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pmThe republican senators on the judiciary committee have decided to paint Sotomayor as a racist without considering the effect(s) this action may have on the ability of their party to increase the the size of their dwindling tent. They have been successful when these tactics have been used in the past. This is the only weapon they have in their arsenal, and they’re not concerned with appealing to anyone except members of their base.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pmOn display for the entire world to see is their inability to think critically and consider the long-term implications of their behavior. This is their winning strategy to win additional seats in congress in 2010. And I must say, it is working out just fine for them, at least in their diseased minds.
SUV = Stupid Ugly Vehicle
July 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pmThis hyperbole is dangerous stuff. My fear is that this extreme name calling (Terrorist Group Leader)is designed to inspire an insecure, fearful follower to commit a thoughtless violent act that will set back this country 50 years. Awful.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pmIt’s interesting that Prod thinks we’re the ones thrashing about and whining about Judge Sotomayor.
Maybe he should ask Jeff Sessions.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:14 pmthat is, if you find blatant hypocrisy interesting
July 15th, 2009 at 2:15 pmRanting_Tommy says:
SUV = Stupid Ugly Vehicle
LOL!!!
That’s worthy of a vote-up!
Checked out your site. Great music.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:18 pmthanks much!
listen all ya want, we’ll make more
July 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pmI agree, Bilbo. I’m trying to adopt the following code: if I choose to respond to a comment, I won’t vote it down.
I think we should not necessarily vote down comments just because we disagree with them, if they add something to the discussion. I’m trying to use the “Vote Down” button the same way I used to use the flag button (though not quite as sparingly), as a signal that a comment is disruptive and a waste of bandwidth, and I’m using the flag button now only for out-and-out abuse.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pmRantingTommy says:
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Intrepid says:
Ranting_Tommy says:
SUV = Stupid Ugly Vehicle
LOL!!!
That’s worthy of a vote-up!
Checked out your site. Great music.
thanks much!
listen all ya want, we’ll make more
Will do. Keep it flowing. :)
July 15th, 2009 at 2:21 pmagree with the plan, but some posters have proven that any slowdown in disruptive rhetoric is only temporary and so they will get an automatic vote down:
prod, backedup, another joe-job, tracist, gobspit, etc
July 15th, 2009 at 2:22 pm.. .. ..
what happened to proud?
> . <
July 15th, 2009 at 2:24 pmmaybe he realized we weren’t going to allow his racist BS to stand so he gave up (he says hopefully)
July 15th, 2009 at 2:25 pmI disagree with you on b-cup and AJ, Tommy. I think both can contribute, and the “Vote Down” could be an effective way to deal with them and their excesses. Tracist I will sometimes want to toy with because it’s fun. But Prod and GOBshite — with ya all the way.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:28 pmjoe cantwell says:
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.. .. ..
what happened to proud?
His mommy called him. She needs him to inflate the tires under the house.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:34 pmralph, the issue with backedup and another joe-job is they will pretend to be reasonable for a few posts, then return to their trollish behavior soon after
I don’t think they will either ever totally stop being trolls, they’ll just hide it for a few posts and then regress
July 15th, 2009 at 2:40 pmI think you’re right Tommy, but we now have a tool to use to maybe temper their trollish behavior. Maybe not, but I’m willing to give it a try.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:42 pmHi Proud…
July 15th, 2009 at 3:09 pmHope these cretins get sued for their lies and slander.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:17 pmYeah ProudMoron. They pick the STUPIDEST parts of your bone ignorant posts to make fun of how pathetically stupid you are. Then your posts go down the toilet which is better than your patent stupidity deserves.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm…
keep trying proud!
:) :) :)
July 15th, 2009 at 4:03 pmSay, Proudie, why not trot on home to FreeRepublic where you can speechify all you want – and nobody will vote you down…?
*I* don’t have to read your crap anymore, and that makes me *very* happy.
YAY!!
July 15th, 2009 at 4:07 pmAnd as for that smug racist turd Sessions – I’d happily smack him into next week, the little barstid. Him and Liberace Graham both.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:09 pmThey really do just get more disgusting with each passing day.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:27 pmWhen the mandatory Senate dog and pony show is over, the demos have the votes to get fugly on the supreme court. So all the rhetoric is rather boring and in the end meaningless.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:04 pm