The United States Senate has confirmed Sonia Sotomayor as the 111th Justice of the Supreme Court by a vote of 68-31. Suck it, empathy- (and Latina-) haters!

Sonia Sotomayor (the activist Latina judge who adjudicates through the lens of her personal experience, unlike Clarence Thomas or the Italian judges, what's his name and what's his name, they're all black to me, since I live in the year 1910) has made it through the sort of grueling, sort of totally ridiculous Judicial Committee hearings with approval for a Senate vote on her elevation to Lord Queen Justice of NAFTA. That will be another boring spectacle. "Among the seven Republicans on the committee, only Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina voted in favor," says the Times. It is sad that the Republican understanding of Sotomayor's deep-seated unfitness to serve, because she believes that judges interpret and therefore create law in the course of their work, law which actually circumscribes human and governmental behavior (instead of Baby God or the Giant Space Jesus Monkey doing so), will not be further heard because of things like democracy and voting and our attention span.

"This is the same week where the American people have been treated to the unseemly spectacle of conservative politicians using 'racism' as a club to beat up Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic American woman nominated to the United States Supreme Court. These attacks on her, as illustrated but not limited to Senator Sessions' remarks, illustrate that her questioners have no insight into their own racial formation, and deformation, in a white-dominant American society. READ MORE

In case you're interested, here's Judge Sotomayor explaining the "wise Latina woman" comment that got Republicans so riled up because if we're going to be allowed to praise life experience as a character builder those life experiences had damn well better be white life experiences, or at least Italian ones (which we are now counting as white).

An anti-abortion demonstrator disrupted the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor earlier this morning; he was immediately removed from the Senate chamber. There's no word yet on the man's identity, but some Republicans are saying that this so-called "Joe The Shouter" could be the next leader of the party.

Unemployed, glued to your computer and have a faint sense of civic interest? Here is your C-Span stream to watch Sonia Sotomayor get grilled about how she hates white people. They actually let you choose which camera view you want to watch, which is rather wonderful.

"Republicans plan to call a white firefighter whose reverse discrimination claim was rejected by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor to testify against her." Great! Maybe they could also cut an ad showing a Hispanic hand bringing down a gavel while the voiceover intones "You needed that promotion, and you were the best qualified, but they tried to give it to a minority, because a Latina woman thought she was wise enough to interpret the law." You're really gonna put up a firefighter to discuss a difficult issue of constitutional jurisprudence that even some conservatives have agreed Sotomayor was compelled to rule for by precedent? Lowest-tech lynching ever.

The Supreme Court has reversed the Second Circuit's ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano by 5-4, "on ideological lines." The case, in which a white firefighter claimed discrimination after being denied a promotion, will be at the center of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. The full decision is here.

The thing with humble beginnings in American life is that one is supposed to leave them decorously as just that-the harrowing, Dickensian prologue to an adult life of implacable success and celebrity splendor. That's why the personal story of Sonia Sotomayor is being tirelessly rehearsed as a classic instance of the American Dream coming true-something that claims its significance on the basis of what the Bronx-bred jurist left behind, as opposed to her much-bruited views on how her ethnic heritage continues to shape her approach to her job. READ MORE