Cornyn: Dems "Giving Cover To Certain Groups" On Sotomayor Nomination

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Other Politics
Posted on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 09:24:26 AM EST
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Via TPM, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) lashed out at Democrats for supporting Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. AP reports:

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the head of his party's Senate campaign committee and a Sotomayor opponent, shot back that Reid and other Democrats were trying to exploit the nomination and "giving cover to groups and individuals to nurture racial grievances for political advantage." "I don't think it influences people's votes, but what it does encourage is a very poisonous — indeed a very toxic — tone of destructive politics," Cornyn told The Associated Press. "They ought to be ashamed of themselves."

(Emphasis supplied.) I think he is talking about "giving cover" to people like me, Latinos. Let me inform Senator Cornyn that, speaking for me only, I do not need Harry Reid to "give me cover" to understand that the Republican Party is hostile to me and people like me. Look in the mirror. You are the problem with regard to how Latinos feel about the GOP. Not Harry Reid.

Speaking for me only

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Cornyn: Dems "Giving Cover To Certain Groups" On Sotomayor Nomination | 55 comments (55 topical)

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The Republican Party Never Paid the Right Price (5.00 / 3) (#1)
by KeysDan on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 09:30:49 AM EST

seems determined to go the way of the Whigs. The sooner the better, in my view.

Kinda funny in a way (5.00 / 1) (#41)
by cal1942 on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:11:45 AM EST

The Whigs split over slavery. The Republicans are in a swirly because of stupidity.

As a political party they should to die since they constitute a movement that's been seriously damaging the nation for some time.

They could be helped along and the death blow dealt if we had the Democratic Party of 50 years ago.

The only thing that will keep the GOP afloat is the lifeline that the Obama administration and Congress keep throwing them.


: It is cringing to hear (5.00 / 1) (#47)
by KeysDan on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:25:35 AM EST

that Republicans have "good ideas", especially without specificity. And, I do understand that the administration still has to deal with the situation with which they are being confronted. My instinct, however, would be to underplay their importance and give them a helping hand on their way to the dustbin of history.

lordy (5.00 / 5) (#2)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 09:34:05 AM EST

but what it does encourage is a very poisonous -- indeed a very toxic -- tone of destructive politics

and what does he think stuff like this does?

What a total crock of creepy disgusting! (5.00 / 1) (#28)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:52:38 AM EST

Is nobody ashamed of this garbage? What is it that John Bradshaw calls this crap in society....religious mystification? Now let's all dance around with vipers.


yesterday (none / 0) (#30)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:57:21 AM EST

that video was #6 on youtubes "news and politics" list


I spoke of my exposure to a certain (5.00 / 1) (#35)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:04:31 AM EST

type of Evangelicalism yesterday. When one of these ministers wants to make a certain point they spend hours and hours and hours "researching" the scriptures and claiming that in Hebrew this was this and that was that. I have even heard them resort to Sanskrit...whatever it takes to make their argument about what God means or wants of the people same minister is manipulating. Then they rehearse this crap in their studies until they can deliver it well in that hypnotic tempo and measure. I'm no theologian, but would someone with an extensive education in theology please address the factual basis for any of this because I will bet you anything it is mostly solid made up crap?


: ya (5.00 / 2) (#38)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:07:07 AM EST

if you translate it from Aramaic to ancient Hebrew and then pronounce it backwards in pig-latin . . .

: Christianity simplified. (5.00 / 1) (#45)
by Fabian on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:21:13 AM EST

"Love your neighbor as yourself."
Everything else is organized religion and politics.

btw (none / 0) (#21)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:20:49 AM EST

I got a link to that video for the third time this morning.

the person who sent it to me got a serious lecture.


Apparently (5.00 / 2) (#3)
by gyrfalcon on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 09:42:03 AM EST

just nominating someone who belongs to one of the ethnic groups Republicans have scorned and alienated creates a "very poisonous, very toxic tone of destructive politics."

Man, I would love to be a bystander when some of these people finally go and meet their Maker.

It seems to me (5.00 / 0) (#4)
by Steve M on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 09:42:56 AM EST

that if the GOP didn't spend all their time yapping about La Raza and and the PRLDF, "certain groups" would have a much harder time claiming that the Republicans are trying to paint mainstream Latino organizations as sinister racial supremacist groups.

I'm sorry you got that dastardly old race card played on you, Sen. Cornyn, but maybe the Republicans could have chosen a different strategy than bringing up the "wise Latina" comment 17 different times in an effort to paint Judge Sotomayor as someone who decides cases on the basis of her race. And let's not pretend all the griping about Ricci is about anything other than an allegation that she'll put the interests of minorities ahead of white people.

I am so happy to see a day when these despicable racial tactics have lost their sting.

Interesting "logic" on Cornyn's part. (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by inclusiveheart on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 09:48:23 AM EST

Basically what he is saying is that his party's all too apprent racism wouldn't be a problem if people weren't bothered by it. What a jerk.

I mean if a person is gonna take an unpopular stand on something, at the very least they should be able to stand behind it and be proud of it - rather than blaming everyone else for responding negatively. It is pathetic really.

I won't even get into all of the other implications of Cornyn's statement that harken back to the bad old days where minorities were expected to shut up and just take it when people attacked them.

Is he "that" stupid or just delusional? (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by byteb on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 09:48:52 AM EST

And The Fool on the Hill has no sense of irony either:

"They ought to be ashamed of themselves."

now that Helms is gone (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:09:11 AM EST

Cornyn seems to be fighting for the title of the most ignorant offensive and obnoxious member of the senate.

I read that over and over. its effective.

"giving cover to groups and individuals to nurture racial grievances for political advantage."

and its shocking in its simplicity. just accuse your opponents of doing exactly what you are doing.

He's got nothing on Jeff Sessions IMO (none / 0) (#12)
by andgarden on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:11:01 AM EST

The GOP used to be able to make (5.00 / 1) (#13)
by oculus on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:12:13 AM EST

this stuff stick.


: have you been (none / 0) (#16)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:16:12 AM EST

watching the poll numbers?

Jeff Sessions is the epitome (5.00 / 0) (#44)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:17:25 AM EST

of an extremely successful racist. He stays off the tube. You will not find him with a mic in his face arguing race issues. He is publicly reserved until it is time to protect white man's lock on the power structures. In all other instances though he will be a man of manners and polite smiles. If he winks at his Klan brethern at the BBQ and you happened to catch that, you were extremely observant and perhaps even rudely so.


he is smarter (none / 0) (#15)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:15:25 AM EST

and therefore more dangerous than Sessions.
and he doesnt look or talk like as much of a rube.

and he is not prissy.


This shtick isn't going to work forever (none / 0) (#17)
by andgarden on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:18:09 AM EST

in Texas.


people have been saying (5.00 / 1) (#18)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:19:52 AM EST

that for as long as I can remember.


: Demographic inevitability (none / 0) (#22)
by andgarden on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:24:49 AM EST

I'd say about 15 years.

Beat me to that remark (none / 0) (#26)
by MO Blue on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:49:00 AM EST

Giving Cover? (5.00 / 1) (#23)
by ruffian on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:38:21 AM EST

Does he think she will be smuggling immigrants in under her robes?

I know very little about La Raza, if that is what he is talking about, but I do know that Cornyn and his ilk have been aiding and abbeting groups representing the worst in America for years. And I'm not even talking about the Republcian party.

I will be so glad to see Sotomayor on the bench. It really is about da*n time.

: trust me (5.00 / 1) (#24)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:41:36 AM EST

he knows what giving cover means:
In its anti-Obama hysteria, Fox has mainstreamed voices once relegated to the fever swamps. This is most immediately clear in the apocalyptic buffoonery of Glenn Beck, and in the way the network has indulged the delusions of the so-called birthers, who insist that Obama was born in Kenya and thus can't legally be president. Yet that's just scratching the surface. On the weekly, hour-long Freedom Watch, which began airing in February, Fox gives its imprimatur to the kind of rhetoric once confined to the short-wave radio broadcasts of militia movements. After eight years of championing increased executive power, the network now hosts a show whose anti-government fixation sometimes leads to cheerful talk of dissolving the United States and dark warnings of impending tyranny.
Putting the show online, says Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow at Media Matters, gives Fox the "best of both words. They can really feed the far right all this paranoid stuff, but even folks at Fox realize they can't go quite that far on TV."
On the Internet, with fewer people paying attention, they're willing to go quite far indeed. On March 18, for example, Freedom Watch did a joint broadcast with the prolific conspiracy theorist Alex Jones--or, as Napolitano introduced him, "the one, the only, the great Alex Jones"--so that the show aired simultaneously on the Fox News Web site and on Jones's radio program. It was an extraordinary collaboration, because Jones is best known as a leader of the 9/11 Truth movement. In his documentary 9/11: The Road to Tyranny, Jones argued that the attacks on the World Trade Center were orchestrated by the U.S. government as a pretext for the "power-mad megalomaniacs" of the New World Order to "usher in their corrupt world government, a world government where populations, their own documents show, will be herded into compact cities, will be issued national ID cards, and yes, even implantable microchips."

Giving cover to nurturing racial grievances? (5.00 / 2) (#25)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:46:58 AM EST

Every fool knows the end of a grievance is the airing out and moving on. The silence that Republicans sell us as manners.......and that kills, destroys, and explodes. And John Cornyn has lost his "Southern" manners and he's talking, all the while exposing to everyone exactly how much intellectual understanding of any problem goes hand in hand with good Southern manners. Oh the manners thing in the South just chaps me all to hell! And it probably works like this; Cornyn can talk about how all this upsets him but when I start talking about how and why this upsets me suddenly manners will have been breached!

How long, oh Lord, how long, must MT (5.00 / 3) (#27)
by oculus on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:50:21 AM EST

live in the south?


Send Moses (5.00 / 3) (#29)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:53:18 AM EST

Let my MT go! (5.00 / 2) (#39)
by andgarden on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:08:52 AM EST

: From your lips (none / 0) (#46)
by Fabian on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:23:46 AM EST

to the ears of the military industrial complex!

I'm not letting her leave until I can escape too (none / 0) (#32)
by ruffian on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:58:56 AM EST

But where to go? This guy doesn't even have the facade of southern manners.


pttf (5.00 / 2) (#36)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:04:55 AM EST

that first paragraph reminds me of a line from the hilarious Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie.

. . . and then I'll ram my ovipositor down your throat and lay my eggs in your chest. but I'm not an alien!

"Apparent "racist comment? (none / 0) (#34)
by oculus on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:03:23 AM EST

"Officer Barrett did not call professor Gates a jungle monkey or malign him racially," Marano said. "He said his behavior was like that of one. It was a characterization of the actions of that man."

The full email (none / 0) (#42)
by Steve M on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:13:43 AM EST

is republished here. A few excerpts:

if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.
That paragraph was as pathetic as jungle monkey gibberish - I might as well ax you the question, "Is this your first test at reporting?"
He indeed has transcended back to a bumbling jungle monkey, thus he forever tremains amid this nation's great social/racial divide that makes it a free and great nation mixed with crazy and awkward differences.
Go ahead, ax me what I think? Gates is a goddamned fool and you the article writer simply a poor follower and maybe worse, a poor writer. Your article title should read CONDUCT UNBECOMING A JUNGLE MONKEY-BACK TO ONE'S ROOTS.

Charming, no? The use of the word "ax" is a nice touch.


what an ignoramous (none / 0) (#49)
by coigue on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 03:21:45 PM EST

he spelled axe wrong.


No one axed you! (5.00 / 2) (#50)
by Steve M on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 03:45:59 PM EST

I am partial to "transcended back." (none / 0) (#51)
by oculus on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 03:48:58 PM EST

: I prefer back-transcended. (none / 0) (#52)
by coigue on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 04:00:12 PM EST

Ha! (none / 0) (#48)
by ruffian on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 01:41:27 PM EST

If that argument worked as an explanation or apology, Obama would be enjoying 'Wheel of Fortune' tonight instead of a scripted happy hour with crappy beer.


WTF? (none / 0) (#37)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:06:41 AM EST

Some people......some people just defy understanding on my part!


Try the Southern GOP (5.00 / 2) (#33)
by gyrfalcon on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:00:41 AM EST

code word "troubling." Much more genteel than "upsetting." You can be "troubled by" something, as virtually every GOP anti-Sotomayor senator said he was.


I'm still learning (5.00 / 1) (#40)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:10:44 AM EST

You do have a very good point here though. If I want to be heard I have to use their vernacular. It can be trying for me when I'm so ticked off. Why should I learn anything about these idiots when obviously they are half a bubble off? This is why Moses has not come for me yet. I haven't learned how to speak the speak. Next time I want to speak, I'm bouncing it off of you first.


: you will be there (5.00 / 2) (#43)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:14:58 AM EST

when you can say "bless your heart" and make it sound like f*ck you.

: Feel free (none / 0) (#54)
by gyrfalcon on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 06:54:30 PM EST

but I'm certainly no expert in Southern-speak. I've just been listening to those jerks in the Senate going on endlessly about how "troubled" they are. Whether it would be accepted in the same way by Southerners coming from a non-Southerner, I have no idea.
Bear in mind that Southerners generally think we northerners are pretty crude and unpleasant, where we think of ourselves as just matter-of-fact and plain-spoken.

they call it manners (none / 0) (#31)
by Capt Howdy on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:58:48 AM EST

I call it passive aggression and I dont stand for it.
screw manners.


Really? (none / 0) (#7)
by nycstray on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 09:51:08 AM EST

I don't think it influences people's votes, . . .

He's the one that should be ashamed.

Apparently, he's the one with the (none / 0) (#8)
by andgarden on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:02:06 AM EST

"racial grievance."

: He's not wild about golf carts or (none / 0) (#9)
by oculus on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:09:10 AM EST

arts funding either: link
I nurture a strong dislike for him re the latter.

Yes yes...shame on the Democrats (none / 0) (#11)
by coigue on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:09:59 AM EST

for using "racial grievances" to further political gains.

(I feel a major eye-roll coming on)

Apparently, Lamar! is backing (none / 0) (#14)
by andgarden on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:13:10 AM EST

Sotomayor.

: But for the wrong reasons! (5.00 / 1) (#19)
by oculus on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:20:16 AM EST

Advice and consent, Senator.

: Lamar, La merrier. (5.00 / 6) (#20)
by Steve M on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:20:40 AM EST

Let's see..... (none / 0) (#53)
by coigue on Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 04:38:44 PM EST

Southern strategy
immigration fear
Pat Bucchanan (need I say more?)
Obama is a muslim
"wise latina"

Anyone have a chainsaw with which to cut that irony?

Cornyn (none / 0) (#55)
by bob h on Fri Jul 31, 2009 at 09:43:37 AM EST

is now having hallucinations.