The Political Whore

The Big Irony for Tuesday was watching the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, one Jefferson B. Sessions III of Alabama, grill US Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor over her statements about the judiciary and race. (He ascended to the top GOP slot on the committee when Arlen Specter switched parties.) Sessions cited what he termed a history of statements that show she would not apply the rule of law but instead use her life experiences and racial politics to make decisions on the high court.

Sessions himself was the target of a similar grilling in 1986, when he was a nominee to the federal district court, according to this account in the conservative Black Political Thought/Hinterland Gazette:

Twenty-three years ago he was engaged in the fight of his life. He was appointed a U.S. attorney in Alabama in 1981 and was nominated to become a U.S. District judge by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. J. Gerald Hebert, a career Justice Department lawyer, testified that Sessions had once called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” He said that they “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” He sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as “un-American” when “they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions” in foreign policy. He is said to have made remarks that he thought the Ku Klux Klan wasn’t so bad until he found out that some of them smoked marijuana. He said these comments were made in jest. Right.

Sessions faced a heated round of questioning from Sen. Edward Kennedy, who called him “a throwback to a shameful era,” and our current Vice President, Joe Biden. How ironic. The committee held four hearings during one of which Sessions pleaded that “I am not a racist.” Hebert also testified that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race” for litigating voting rights cases. His nomination failed in committee on a 10 to 8 vote, with Specter joining the nominee’s original patron, Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) in dooming the nomination. In 1994, Sessions won a state attorney general’s race, and then won election to the Senate in 1996 after Heflin retired.

Talk about somebody who (it would seem) would be prejudiced against a process or person, having gone through what must have been a painful rejection by Democrats decades ago.

The Washington Post has a full transcript of the Sessions-Sotomayor interrogation.

It’s a Mike Gravel (’memba him?) Christmas, from Red State Nation in 2007

• Buddy Johnson: “Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!”
• The Friendship Trail hiking-biking-jogging bridge is closed entirely; engineers warn of possible collapse.
• Our buff president-elect.
• … And his Hawaiian vacation.
• The letter from FLA lawyers pissed at how Charlie Crist is politicizing the judicial nomination process.
• … And could, of course, sue.
• Franken ahead by 48 votes in Minnesota.
• Saudi court rules that 8-year-old girl cannot divorce her 58-year-old husband. She has to wait until puberty to leave him.
• Amazing spread of Greek riot photos.

Credit: REUTERS/John Kolesidis

Day two of the Sex & Politics news story line plays out with the revelation that a high-end New York stripper and a Tampa Bay area appellate court judge were, at a minimum, financially intertwined. 2nd District Court of Appeal Judge Thomas Stringer Sr. has mostly lawyered and PR’ed up about the details of his business deals with Christy Yamanaka, according to the story that Newschannel 8 reporter Steve Andrews broke last night:

Thomas E. Stringer Sr., who broke barriers as the first black circuit judge in Hillsborough County, and Christy Yamanaka, who dances at a famous New York strip club, met in 1995 at the old Malio’s restaurant on South Dale Mabry Highway.

Today, they are at odds over money.

Stringer, 63, now sits on the 2nd District Court of Appeal, reviewing the decisions of lower Florida courts. He won’t talk about why he and Yamanaka first struck up a friendship.

Stringer said he and Yamanaka, 47, were business partners in the purchase and sale of a house in Hawaii. He also acknowledges Yamanaka’s money went into his bank accounts, saying he opened the accounts in his name because she had terrible credit. Yamanaka’s contention he helped her hide money, though, is “not accurate,” he said

Stringer would not elaborate on why Yamanaka used his bank accounts.

The stripper told Newschannel 8 that the relationship was sexual as well as financial:

Yamanaka, in several interviews from New York by phone and e-mail, said she was born in Korea and lived in Japan. She moved to the United States with her family when she was 20. She attended college but did not graduate, she said.

She said she worked as a waitress in Japanese restaurants then, over the next 10 years, lived in Dallas, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles. In 1995, she said, after divorcing a Japanese national, she came to Tampa.

Yamanaka got a job dancing at 2001 Odyssey, she said. It was the first time she worked as a stripper.

One night, she said, as she was eating dinner alone at the bar of the old Malio’s, the judge sent her a drink. He said he could not recall how they made contact that night. Both said a friendship developed.

Yamanaka said the relationship eventually turned sexual. Stringer said the relationship was “personal” but he declined to elaborate.

Here is one of the photos that the cooperative Yamanaka supplied to Newschannel 8. (credit: tbo.com)

So let’s sum up what we know for sure, leaving aside the not-quite-disputed-but-not-totally-proved sexual allegations: Respected and intelligent local jurist hangs out at the No. 1 over-50 meat market in Tampa in the 1990s. (bad decision 1) He buys a hot looking stripper a drink. (bad decision 2) He stays in touch with her on and off over the years. (bad decision 3) She tips him off about an investment property in Hawaii where she lives, and he buys the house, shares access to a bank account with her and she lives there as a renter. (bad decisions, multiple)

Oh, and this from the St. Pete Times account this morning:

Since last spring, she has lived in a New York City apartment leased under Stringer’s name. He said he assisted her with the lease because of her bad credit and has had to pay the $1,600 monthly rent on two or three occasions.

“I was just helping a friend,” he said. But, he added, “I do not intend to renew the lease.”

You can hear Florida’s Judicial Qualifications Commission whirring up as I type.

Also, props to Andrews, who hit the lottery by having this story ready to go just as the biggest hooker-public official story broke out of New York with Elliot “Client 9″ Spitzer.