The White House announced this evening that Obama has nominated Dr. Miguel Díaz, a Catholic theologian and scholar, to serve as ambassador to the Vatican. It’s an interesting pick on several different levels. The U.S. and the Holy See have only had formal diplomatic relations since 1984, and in those 25 years, most of the [...]
I suppose there’s no more perfect storm than a loggorheic ideological narcissist with a twitter account. But ladies and gentlemen, I give you…Newt Gingrich, who has twitually accused Sonia Sotomayor of racism, just as he twitually accused the President of being soft on pirates a few hours before the President got very hard on pirates [...]
When the bell rings, some people just can’t stop themselves from salivating, despite the warning that Joe Klein mentions below. And that is why Democratic pollsters and strategists are smiling this afternoon. The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor has caused two general reactions among Republicans: Elected officials, who know all about the demographic Hispanic boomlet that [...]
Since my fellow religion writers are all over the question of what it would mean if six of the nine Supreme Court justices are Catholics, I should probably expand on my initial three sentence analysis. I still think it’s unlikely that Judge Sotomayor will face the same kinds of protests and charges of being a [...]
As our colleague Alice Park wrote yesterday, one of the questions surrounding the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor involves the fact that she suffers from Type 1 diabetes: The nominee’s chronic condition is worth noting, since it puts her at increased risk of several serious medical conditions, including heart disease, kidney problems, blindness and nerve damage [...]
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/flash/cspanPlayer.swf" fvars=" pid=286536-1 ; clipStart=1021.42 ; clipStop=1136.85 ; autoplay=0 " width="365" height="340" /] From our friends at the C-SPAN Video Library, this clip of Sonia Sotomayor in action last December 9, in oral arguments in Arar v. Ashcroft. All twelve appeals judges are sitting en banc to hear the appeal of a June, 2008, [...]
The Republican Party decides not to go berserk over Sonia Sotomayor? As Mark McKinnon says in the Daily Beast: Let’s face it, Sotomayor is a political trifecta. Woman. Hispanic. Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from George H. W. Bush. Yes, Mitch McConnell has to make his pro forma gestures about doing due diligence. And it [...]
Illinois Sen. Roland Burris came out today to announce that the recently released FBI transcript of a phone call he had with the brother of fallen Gov. Rod Blagojevich–in which Burris offered to raise money for the governor through his lawyer to hide his tracks while begging for U.S. Senate appointment–should “set the record straight [...]
The GOP response to President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor seems to be walk softly and carry a huge magnifying glass. Also, you can listen here to a podcast about what to expect. Update: A GOP birdie reminds me that the Dems paid little heed to Hispanic voters when they filibustered Miguel Estrada’s nomination to [...]
Is this one from the New Yorker’s Atul Gawande, looking at why health care costs are so high in McAllen, Texas–and why more health care isn’t the same as better health care.: When you look across the spectrum from Grand Junction to McAllen—and the almost threefold difference in the costs of care—you come to realize [...]
