Reply #56: I think the biggest litmus test for whether she's centrist is her position on corporate personhood!

[cascadiance]

THAT is the issue I want to focus attention on whether she supports it or not. If she does, I want her to be withdrawn!

But, perhaps there are some indications in her favor? An earlier thread asked about her stance on this... Perhaps a legal mind can explain this case a little more to extrapolate her opinion on corporate personhood, and whether its that relevant to it or not...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8388366&mesg_id=8388385

This posting also cites this case as well. I think we really need to dig into it!

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2009/05/this-is-how-obstructionism-for.html

This Is How Obstructionism For Obstructionism's Sake (And For Cash) Works To Undermine The Country

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According to Charlie Savage in yesterday's NY Times the Republicans and their extreme right-wing allies are stockpiling ammunition to use against any of the frequently-mentioned prospects Obama is thought to be considering.

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If he nominates Judge Sonia Sotomayor, they plan to accuse her of being “willing to expand constitutional rights beyond the text of the Constitution.”

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Although the hard right religious radicals who get most worked up over nomination battles never quite understand the concept of separation of Church and State and are always bothering normal people about their religious conceptions and superstitions, the Republican Party's only real interest in this fight-- besides raking in dough from the suckers-- is to force Obama to pick a pro-corporatist judge. In the end that is the only qualification Republicans care about. Their brief against Sonia Sotomayor, for example, "cites a ruling in which she said a man could sue a private corporation for violating his constitutional rights while acting as a government contractor." That's an area where Republicans will never allow anyone to tread.

In 1886 an activist right wing judge made a wrongheaded pronouncement that has been a disaster for American working families ever since and that is the entire basis for Republican Party judicial "thought." The case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company appears to-- or has been interpreted to-- declare that a corporation is, legally, a person and hence protected by the 14th Amendment which guarantees the equal protection of the law. This misinterpretation of the law-- literally put forward by a court reporter!-- has changed the course of history by guaranteeing that rise of corporate rule and a drastic imbalance between powerful private corporations and society (ordinary citizens).

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