“Fiesta Latina” changes the rhythm at Obama White House
President Barack Obama celebrated the growing contribution of Hispanic culture and music to the United States with a “Fiesta Latina” at the White House, part of a musical series started by First Lady Michelle Obama.
Latin music “moves us and tends to make us want to move ourselves,” the president declared.
Actors Eva Longoria Parker, George Lopez and Jimmy Smits began the show joking that Obama is Hispanic.
Gloria Estefan followed with her Billboard hit “No Llores,” accompanied by Jose Feliciano and percussionist Sheila E.
While the celebration of Hispanic music brought other entertainment heavyweights as Marc Anthony and Jeninfer Lopez, Los Lobos, Thalia and Pete Escovedo to the White House, the evening’s standing ovation went to the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic member of the high court.
Bachata also came out of the dance clubs and onto the White House’s South Lawn, with the Bronx-based group Aventura performing a style of music that has begun to dominate dance floors alongside Salsa and Merengue in clubs across the country.
The music was first heard at parties in the Dominican Republic in the 60s but, largely thanks to Aventura, it has recently taken hold in the United States. The four-man music group debuted in 1999 and is known for combining the ballad-like music and its strumming guitars with r&b, hip-hop and Reggaeton.
Sotomayor: getting lost on way to Supreme Court nomination
When Sonia Sotomayor got THE CALL, she says her heart started racing and she started crying.
President Barack Obama had called on her cell phone to say she was his first pick for the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I actually stood by my balcony doors, and I had … my cell phone in my right hand and I had my left hand over my chest trying to calm my beating heart,” Sotomayor, now a Supreme Court Justice, said in an interview with the cable television network C-SPAN.
On that evening in late May, Sotomayor said, “I caught my breath and started to cry and said, ‘Thank you, Mr. President’.” Her public admission of emotion was uncharacteristically candid for a sitting Supreme Court Justice.
And then she faced her first hurdle on the road to confirmation — getting to Washington.
A friend drove her from New York for Obama’s announcement the next day. The trip to Washington, which usually takes about four hours, “took us a little longer,” she said. “A torrential rain started on the drive and it knocked out our GPS, and so we got lost.”
Sotomayor had been writing her remarks during the drive and realized at one point they were in Virginia going away from Washington.
A very humane judge who will accomplish optimal results with her transparency, knowledge and empathy. She will make the bench even more respected;
Baseball gets Justice — Sotomayor to throw first pitch
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a longtime avid fan of the New York Yankees baseball team, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch before Saturday’s game against the Boston Red Sox.
A child of Puerto Rican parents, she grew up in the Bronx not far from where the Yankees play. Sotomayor, who was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate last month, is the first Hispanic justice on the high court.
The Yankees said ceremonial first pitches by Sotomayor and by Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli on Friday will take place during the team’s final regular season homestand to commemorate Hispanic heritage month.
“Having Justice Sotomayor, a South Bronx native, participate in our yearly Hispanic heritage month celebration is very exciting, as she is an inspiration to so many,” Manuel Garcia, Yankees Director of Latino Affairs, said. “We are proud to welcome her and President Martinelli to our new home.”
The Yankees, with the best record in baseball, are playing in a new stadium this season.
Sotomayor had a famous brush with Major League Baseball when she was a District Court judge with a decision that helped end the baseball strike of 1994-1995. “Some say that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball,” Obama said in nominating her to the Supreme Court.
For Sotomayor’s official duties as a justice, the Supreme Court will next meet in a private conference next Tuesday and the new term officially begins on Oct. 5.
Come on folks, we can do better than this. This is clearly a leftist politcal appointment designed to derail the current justice system as such. Guess what? It’ll probalby work.
Sotomayor’s first day on bench in public session, Ricky Martin attends
Justice Sonia Sotomayor received a warm welcome from her fellow Supreme Court colleagues on her first day on the bench in a public session attended by such luminaries as President Barack Obama and singer Ricky Martin.
Sotomayor, 55, is the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court and only the third woman. She wore the standard black judicial robe, with a white lace collar, known as a jabot, that was given to her by her colleague, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The investiture marked the third ceremony for Sotomayor since the Senate approved her nomination in early August.
The other eight Supreme Court members took the bench for the latest ceremony which lasted about six minutes and included her reciting the judicial oath.
It ended with Chief Justice John Roberts, on behalf of the entire court, extending to the former federal judge from New York a “warm welcome” and wishing her “a long and happy career in our common calling.”
Then, Roberts and Sotomayor walked down the front steps of the building and stood briefly on the plaza, directly across from the U.S. Capitol, for photographs. “Tell me when you have enough,” a smiling Sotomayor said to the photographers.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman confirmed that singer Ricky Martin was among the several hundred people who attended the ceremony, but had no other details on why the Puerto Rican-born pop singer had been invited. Sotomayor’s parents were from Puerto Rico.
Nobody has to feel sad because Ricky Martin was there not as an entertainer but a responsible human being after all the humanitarian work he has been doing.Society needs such activists in order to change the way it is headed.
Emotions high at White House for “Puerto Rican girl” Sotomayor
President Barack Obama took a break from his tough fight over healthcare reform on Wednesday to throw a victory party for Sonia Sotomayor, who on Saturday was sworn in as the first Hispanic and third woman justice in the 220-year-long history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sotomayor, Obama’s first nominee to the highest U.S. court, was praised for breaking barriers not only for her ethnic background and gender, but also for her unique history as a justice who was raised in humble New York City surroundings as the child of a single Puerto Rican mother.
”It is this nation’s faith in a more perfect union that allowed a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx to stand here now,” Sotomayor told the crowd in a packed East Room, who responded with applause, loud cheers and a standing ovation. “I am struck again today by the wonder of my own life and the life we in America are so privileged to lead,” she said.
Republicans who had opposed the nomination had charged that Sotomayor lacked impartiality by zeroing in on her past comments that a “wise Latina” woman might reach a better decision than a white man. Obama’s remarks touched on that controversy, by citing not just Sotomayor’s credentials as a lawyer and judge, but also insight she had gained due to her upbringing. “Her life is one of those ‘only in America’ stories,” he said.
In replacing the retired Justice David Souter, Sotomayor is not expected to change the court’s ideological balance. Souter sided with the liberal wing of the court, which in recent years has often issued 5-4 rulings in favor of conservatives. Two members of the court’s liberal wing, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens, were the only two justices to attend Wednesday’s reception.
Activists, particularly from the U.S. Hispanic community, have hailed Sotomayor’s appointment. “This is a good day,” said Fernando Negron, 32, a radio host and community activist from Orlando, Florida, whose father moved to the mainland United States from Puerto Rico, who was a guest at the reception.
“My father came here back in the 1950s, so he went through what her mother went through. So you get a little emotional for the people who allowed this to happen.”
I couldn’t agree more with Jason’s and Shane’s comments. I was born and live in Puerto Rico. We have been US citizens for about 100 years and want to be called Americans.
The emphasis on her “ethnicity” just creates more confusion in the US, as to our relationship as a territory of the US for over 100 years, something many of us are trying real hard to clarify. Most people in the US think of us as foreign and legal or ilegal immigrants.That is why the “puertorican girl” phrase, to me, is offensive.
Thanks to those who also see it our way. I don’t recall that the state of origin of the family of other Justices to be an issue during their nomination and confirmation.
The First Draft: Swearing-in is one thing. A White House do is another.
For those who may have missed it — and don’t laugh, there could be quite a few who did — there’s a new Supreme Court justice in town. After months of speculation, debate, a Capitol Hill grilling and finally a vote to confirm her, Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the first Latina and only the third woman to serve on the U.S. high court.
The problem, for public-awareness purposes, is that it happened on Saturday in an eye-blink ceremony in a conference room at the Supreme Court building. That was a departure from decades of tradition that has dictated a White House oath-taking for new justices, reportedly on President Barack Obama’s say-so.
That doesn’t mean Sotomayor won’t get her time at the White House. That happens this morning in an East Room reception hosted by the president and first lady Michelle Obama.
It’s a busy day for official honors at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This afternoon, there will be a ceremony to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Senator Ted Kennedy, human rights leader Bishop Desmond Tutu, tennis great Billie Jean King and actor and activist Sidney Poitier, among others. See the complete list here.
The most controversial recipient is probably Mary Robinson, the former U.N. high commissioner for human rights and an organizer of an anti-racism conference in South Africa in 2001. The U.S. delegation walked out of that conference and pro-Israel groups and others have criticised its concluding document as anti-Semitic and equating Zionism with racism. John Bolton, Washington’s U.N. representative during the Bush administration, said flatly in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that Robinson should not receive the award.
Could there be protests in this most decorous of locations, at what is normally — forgive our jaded sensibilities — a heart-warming but often dull ceremony? Stay tuned.
Live updates from the Sotomayor confirmation hearings
Reuters’ Andrew Quinn will be providing live updates on the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor, scheduled to start on Tuesday at 0930 ET. (Editor’s note: Reader comments appear in a smaller font)
JD & R. Karch. Judge Sotomayor has been reversed by the Supreme Court in 6 out of the 380 opinions. That is a reversal of less than 1.6% of the time. The 40% figure (or 60% I’ve seen in some places) is of the cases the Supreme Court has taken up. It has been determined that the Supreme Court reverses about 75% of all the decisions they take up. So, she’s actually doing much better than the average appellate judge. Seriously, when the Supreme Court takes up a case the are likely to reverse the decision. That means in 374 of her opinions either the losing party has decided an appeal to the Supreme Court isn’t worth it, or the Supreme Court hasn’t taken up the case for review.
The First Draft: Power of persuasion?
President Barack Obama has targetted healthcare reform as his top legislative priority. Now he just has to convince Congress to make it work.
Over the past week, Obama has stepped up pressure on lawmakers, speaking out each day about the need for an overhaul of the unwieldy system. He also has invited key lawmakers to the White House for a little personal persuasion.
Four Republican senators made the trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to see the president on Wednesday and today he’ll meet with Republican Senator Olympia Snowe and Democrat Ben Nelson. Yesterday Obama also took the opportunity of congratulating the newest congresswoman — Judy Chu of California — on her victory to make a special mention of healthcare and the need to reform the system and lower costs for Americans.
When they’re not being wooed by the president, lawmakers will stay busy talking about healthcare on Capitol Hill today. The thorny issue of taxes will take center stage in the congressional debate.
The House Ways and Means Committee begins debate, and may vote, on proposed taxes and fees in the House Democratic healthcare proposal. Those include a tax on richest Americans to help pay for the healthcare overhaul. Two other House committees — Energy and Commerce and Education and Labor — are working on their portions of the bill.
The Senate Finance Committee meets in closed session again for debates on how to pay for the overhaul. They are considering whether to tax any portion of employee healthcare benefits.
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor heads back to the hearing room to face senators in the Judiciary Committee for the fourth day in a row. Though Republican lawmakers have tried to paint her as a judicial activist who will stamp the court with Obama’s liberal agenda, Sotomayor has held steady and remained calm with measured assurances that she is not an activist.
a lot of people are totally irresponsible,they choose to live their lives with out any consideration for their health or prevision.they would not be prepared to pay any amount of money to any health insurance if they knew that there was a possibility of getting it for free.in the past fortunately for them you had employers carrying the burden.this section of the population is a lot greater than we think,liberal thinking has always failed when it has assumed that people are grateful,but reality is most recipients of handouts take them for granted and argue that it is their entitlement.
The First Draft: It’s healthcare and Supreme Court – again
Today seems a bit like a repeat of yesterday, just with a bit of a twist.
On the healthcare front, action moves to the Senate side with the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee due to finish work on and present its version of the healthcare bill . The Senate Finance Committee is still hammering out details on how to pay for a massive healthcare overhaul and holds a closed door meeting before it presents its version of the bill next week.
President Barack Obama will increase his pressure on lawmakers to reach agreement with a Rose Garden address at 1:05 pm EDT/1705 GMT on the need for health care reform. Obama, who has made the healthcare overhaul his top legislative priority, on Tuesday voiced support for a House of Representatives proposal that would pay for the reform by levying a new tax on the wealthy.
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor heads back to face the Senate Judiciary Committee at 9:30 EDT/1330 GMT for the second day of questioning in her nomination hearing.
Republicans will likely keep grilling her on issues they see as signs of her “activist” tendancies. In a series of calm and measured responses on Tuesday, Sotomayor promised to rule on law, not racial bias and explained some controversial comments made in the past.
The Democratic majority in the Senate means Sotomayor’s lifetime appointment on the high court is all but assured. But Republicans are seizing the moment to question Obama’s first nominee, who could influence the direction of the Supreme Court.
Republicans don’t want a healthcare plan. Just playing obstructionists. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
The First Draft: Now to the Q+A for Sotomayor
After a day spent mostly silent, looking on as senators in the Judiciary Committee made their formal opening statements and others lauded her accomplishments, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will be peppered with questions today about her qualifications for the life-time appointment.
Sotomayor likely will face tough questioning as the lawmakers seek to find out where she might take the country on issues such as abortion, guns and race. Though Republicans have conceded that Sotomayor will most likely win confirmation in the Democrat-dominated Senate, they likely will use the opportunity to focus on what they call her “activist” history.
Also on Capitol Hill, other lawmakers continue to work on legislation to revamp the healthcare industry after President Barack Obama “put everybody on notice” on Monday and and vowed to overhaul the system.
“Inaction is not an option,’ he said at the White House on Monday, amid talk by lawmakers that the healthcare plan could not be completed by August. “For those naysayers and cynics who think that this is not going to happen, don’t bet against us. We are going to make this thing happen.”
Today Obama travels to Michigan, where he will announce a $12 billion initiative to boost community colleges and increase the number of college graduates.
Then he heads to St Louis, where he will get one of the perks that comes with being the president: He will throw out the first pitch at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
I am absolutely speechless over the arrogance and shamelessness of this White House. Was the purpose really to “celebrate” hispanic music?
Was it to rub elbows with celebrities while promoting yourself as a man of the people who welcomes Hispanics into the Democrat party?
Hopefully this was not funded with tax payer money.
All of this while there are two wars going on? The last president couldn’t even golf without hearing from the media.
This was shameless narcissism and self promotion on the part of everyone who attended.
The music was excellent – to bad it was all political.