The Senate confirmation process for the first Hispanic judge on the US Supreme Court ended in triumph for Latinos, while Senator Arlen Specter spoke without hesitation about how “ridiculousness” of the Republican opposition.

He called this opposition “scandalous”, and also recognized that it was much stronger than it was for other judges’ hearings, despite this Boricua’s irrefutable intellectual capacities.

The once-Republican Senator had already said there was nothing wrong with “a little ethnic pride”, in reference to Sotomayor’s statements about a “wise latina” that became, according to Specter, cracks in her armor that were exploited by Republicans.

Nevertheless, this historic event was consummated this week, but not without bitterness for the 31 Republicans who couldn’t resign themselves to having a Latina Justice on the highest court in the land.

It was an historic event not just for its own sake, but also because of the lessons learned about the reactions that a minority gaining the highest seat of power provoke in the establishment.

The shame of CNN

Lou Dobbs keeps putting CNN’s reliability in question, but at least there is also a kind of movement that is keeping track of his falsehoods, distortions and biases.

The CNN anchor, who is a well-known spewer of rhetorical hatred against immigrants, has recently become obsessed with Obama’s birth certificate, and from his television “pulpit”, he has promoted a whole movement to question the US President’s birth.

This has shamed the channel, its journalists, and its president, Jonathan Klein, who defends him despite considering the birth certificate topic “dead”.

Even ultra-conservative personalities like Ann Coulter have criticized him.

Its satisfying to know that groups like Media Matters have been following this personality who shames journalism. This liberal institution has called for CNN to live up to its own slogan: “The most trusted news source”.

It’s not the first time that Dobbs has put CNN’s reliability in question. He has a long history of lies and distortions about immigration, so much so that he had to sit down with president Klein last year and agree to tone down the volume on his rhetoric of hate.

“Let’s tell CNN that there’s nothing legitimate about racial paranoia”, said Media Matters this week in a commercial calling for CNN to take action against Dobbs’ declarations.

For the time being, the public seems to be ignoring him. His “ratings” are going down.