actually readit, kind of says the site of wh t remark seems to say. i think she'll point that out. and en in terms of the richey case, i think she will say that she s following the law as it was in the second circuit when that decision was made. she was folling predent. and ihink she can paycheck a convinng argument on that case. >> eugene robinson. as the committ continues on their lunch brk, we'll be back afte very brief mesges with bruce fine, richard wolff ris sloan, senat itehouse from rhode island stay with us as we coinue with "andrea mitchell reports," our special coverage othe con fir nation hearing of sonia sotomayor only on msnb

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(announcer) let people see thstn you, nothing more noing less. try a neararly invisible hearing aid a nearby miracle-eaear location. every miracle-eaear hearing aid is b backed by risk-free -dayoney-back guarantee. nd out for yourself what has made miracle-earr a household name for better hearing, miracle-e. whatat wl l yo miracle sosod d li? cacall-800-336-4990 to schedule yoyour free hearing test or for a fe information n kit with comomete deils about hehearing ss and how we can help you. call 80800-6-4990 to take one of theasy steps totowa better hearing. that's 1-800-6-4990 llll now and welcome back. andrea mitchell reporting here from washington as the committee, the judicry commite is in aunch bre, a

brief record whe they have lunch, we're talking to e of the members. senator sheln whitehouse of rhode isnd. the juciary committee meer who already made his opening statements senator, thank y very much. welcome. let'talk about some of the things that you said in your opening statemen you remarked,as did sator feinstein, that you d not believe that this court,he roberts court, well, she said it a ttle bit more indirect. specific about it, that it has been an umpire, a neutral umpire. this reference to the way justice roberts in his own nfirmation hearin described hielf. why do you think t roberts court has notbeen neutral? >> i think theoberts court ha not been neutral because it does t desire to be neutra for a considerable period of time,he republican party has made it agoal to populate the juciary committee with t right-wing jges in order to effect the way the trend of the

judiciy was goi. they've been qte success inform that regard,nd thathe judges they wanted are in ple, they've been doinging what is expected. it was a purposeful effort to mo theudiciary rightward at would signal quite plaiy by the rublicans over many, many years. there's not much mystery tit. they're dg what they told us they would do. >> this is what senator jeff ssions, the ranking member on the republican side, said just eat this analy to death of the umpires and the balls and strikes. senator sessions in his opening remarks today. t's listen. >> such approach to judging means that the umpire calling th game is n neutral,but instea feels empowed to fav onteamer another call it empathy, call it prejudic or call itsympathy, but whatevert is, it's no law. in truth,t's morak to politics and politics has place in the couroom. >> senator,id theresident of thunited states, enfore

he nominated this judge to become a justice, did he put her on the spot, put her on the defensive by using the word "empathy"? the republans have tried to make a great dea out of the rd mpathy" comingrom the white house,hat this indicas some kind of prejudice. >> in fact, senator sessions used the two words side by side as if they were interchanable in the clipha you just played. so carly, they're trying to align them that way. think what we' really about here in this hearing at th point, as senatograham said, it's virtual ceainty that e's going to be confirmed s there' battle going on to define what the nor is for judging inamerica. and the republicans having succeeded at populangthe judiciary th a lot of right-wing judges are now trying to make them look not like right-wing extreme b a norm and callenging anybody who varies fmhat norm. and they're using the word "empathy" to try to sort of

force that ssue. anas you know, in my statement, i pushed back pretty hard, because ihink the whole purpose of courtroomsf the judiciary in our separated powers of government is to be a refugee and a nctuary where people who ar't getting anywhere, anyere else because the legislatures and gornors were corrupted or overwhelmed by passin passions or frenzi, they can g to court and ty can get justice. i think it's important for a judge to hav that kind of empathy to distance themlves from the passi pasons of the moment, fromhe prevailing power struure and to make se that they are following the law. i see the emthy in the law as closely intertwined the role th a judge has in our system. >>senator, let me askou about the wise lati comment. when y met with her, did you ask her about i and do you think she's gog to be explaing it or putting it in contt or walking away from it? >> i think so. i think that in the sameway

th she could say thats a experienced former psecutor, i may be able t add mor value to a decision than people who have never had that experience. i think it's fair to say that as aise la, i maye able to add morevalue than people who have not ha that expience, not in every case,ot every time, but the reason that we ve nine supreme court just, the reason that we add judges is the court getshigher up in the system is th we vae more and more the exrience that people have had. it's moremptant and as oliver wendel hoes said, the life of the law has no been logic, and it has been experience. and brings unique expeence and that wil add valu i think that's just matter of human fact. >> sheon whitehouse from the judiciary committee, thank you so much. >> you're very lce. >> joinin us nowpete willia williams, nbc's justice correspondent. te, what did you hear? >> i think, first of all, wat has to be said is thathe has

masteredhe essti talent for nominees, she has to sit there looking impassive. e had exactly the same expression. was atriumph of facial utrality. i felt tt was important. i ink one of the them here, andrea, is 78. that's the number of votesohn roberts got. and one of thengs decrs were saying today, ifohn roberts got after saying that heas going to call it neutrally and they belve he's been puing the t to the right, then certainly sonia sotomayor derves to get a lot of votes as ell. youalked about it i your conversation with senar whitehouse. robe seemed to be a theme today and so did the president, because of his statements about empathy. the other thing, andrea,there's beeny little said about her cisions, as we expected. they did bring up the new haven firefightes case, as we expeed twould.

they did bring up heruling in the second amendme area. this is a tough question that divided thfederal courts. the supreme court has said the secondmendment provides an individual not a group or militia right to own a g in striking down the handgunan he in washington, b she was on a court tha said that that does n apply to the state. her court's ruled tha way,o has the seventh cirit in illinois, the ninth circuit s gone the other way, but y can be surthat she'll be asked a lot about that. i thought mt of the questio toda as really we expected, were about the things sheaid ofthe bench,not about her decisions. >> and the two protests two anti-artiorotesters who briefly drupted the session, one of them already has been charged, aleast, dispting congress. intereinglbortion is not expectedto be a major factor here, because she's reacing stice soer. and there ar't any cases pein if i'm correctthat might greatly change abortion rits.

>> oth than the criticm for some of the supreme court, from i think nator feinstein, of the preme court's past rulings on partial birth abortions, that's the only ti,hat and th protests are the on times it's been raised. nothg in her decisions, because she ha never rule on the core queion of a woman's right to aborti. she'suled cses involving free speech and protests about abortion. she's ruled on th government's policy funding to government programs in her countries that support ortion. but never on the core question. so i'm sure there will be questions for herbo it, but it doesn't seemike it's going toominate this hearing, as i has some in the past. >> pete williams,e look forward to hearing fm you all day and of course tonighton "nigly news." thanks smuch for your expertise. now back to the cort, to the cournfirmation aring room. norah o'donnell you've been there to watch allf the action. what aut some of the

atmospheri, the emotions in that room. >> reporter: reallinteresting, andrea. we're lening a little bit mre about at judge sonia sotoyor is going toay in h openg statement en she appears for the first time since, of course, the president introduce her to th public. and she's largely goingto, we're to, focus on her amazing personal sty. as you know, she grew u in a public housi project in the brx. she losthe father at age 9. her moth worked six days a week as a nurse to she could send her daught to private cathic schools. cardinal spellman, which is a great school there in new rk. princeton and yale.n t the other thing is, she'salso, we're told, going to fill out a little bit more abouther career background as a prosecutor and certainly as ajudge. so she will t on tha in her opening remarks. in terms of the atmospherics, andrea, it haseen interesting, of course, to be here. we saw alito here, saw judge

roberts d hi confirmation hearings here in the heart building. two ierptions by protesters, abortion was the toc. they got a stern warning from senator leahy that will not be toleted. and two other things, andrea i ought was interesting. she had a lot of familyith her, includin nieces and nephews, young, who sat tough the heang. and also t senators behinde sitting, of crse. we saw al fnken for the first time. he sat very quietly the whole time. really wanted toeem to soak it in,emed to be very serious pang atention. i actually asd sheldon whitehouse how he was doing and he said he didn't even want t tellny jokes, he's so serious since he's been here in the sena. and finally, arlen specter, he's th one that's supposed be sitting the secon from the end on theemocc side next t al fraen, i haven't seen him today. and i noted too that when senator leahy dismissed everybody from the eak, they re going t hear fr other

senators we havet hea from yet,specter's not one of them. we e-mailed some people to find out why he's not here today. >> we'll try to car up that ery. norah donnell at the heargs, thank you so mh. up next, some of today's top stories, but first we'llke a quick break and co back with cliff sloan and others. stay with us. undefeateprofsional boxer floydydmoney"ayweather s the fastest hands boboxing has ever seen. so i've come toto thiring to see who's fafaster on the internet. i'll be using the 3g &t laptopconnect card. he won't. so i canan bwse the web faster, email sine plans faster. all on the go. i'm bill kurtis anand i'm faster than floyd mamayweather (announcer) switch to the nation fastest 3g netwo and gethehet laptopcnenect card for free.

let's bring in her lynn ffel, and cliff sloan, a first

amendment attoeynd supreme court expert who oversaw justice stephen breyer's supreme court nomination. welcome both. pressor eiffel, first t you, w do you expect that thi nominee is going to handle all of the questions about race, about, quote, reverse discrimination, affirmative acon and the wise latina coent? >> well, she's i something of a spot. it's an interestinone. what judge sotomayor has done in her speeches is she's taken the lid ofsomething that's very rarely discsed, which is that judg are people too. they hav backgrounds, ty have ofessional backgrounds, they haveraces, marital status and al o these things affect w they ar and in her speecs, she suggted that this can affect how you can approach a case. and as gene robinson said in an earlier segment, what she really sd in her speeches is, i try to be conscious of tis reality sohat i can guard agait it's very comfti to hear someone like a nominee robts say, you know,'m just goi to

call ball and strikes, it's ver simple. what judge sotomay has revealed, it's not that simple, it's actually quite complicated she may be tasked with the job of explaing what she means th complication. this is more tn clarence thomas had to do. you remember tt he famously said he would just strip down like a runner forget his past affiliation with the reagan administration and hwould be a utral judge. and many would lk at his opinions and say that that 't happened. so she may ve to actually take on what other nominees have been given aath on, which is the way in which whoou are affects yourjudging. i think she's going to try and do it with great dispatch. she doesn't want to linger her. she wants to get to taing about her opinions, which i think by all accounts make vy clear that she's not a partisan, cial or otherwise. and of course, clarence omas, famously and emotionally tuedis hearingsround when he did sit there and say, using e most powerful racial metaphor that one could possibly

imagine,hen he said that that hearing had become like a hi-tech lynchg. what we think we got a little bit of a hint of how she will answer questions about wise latina when i was talking to senator wtehouse a few minute ago and he said that se would suggest that like a former prosecutor criminal precutor, that is one aspect of her life. clf slo, is that one way to try to get hlf off the spot, becae of comments thatre not part of her judicial record, but part of her speeches, which have become so controversial? >> right, absolutely. and i think we'reoing to see her deal wit it in a couple ys. i don't think 're going to see her take on that broad ques. the rublicans would love to see her do that. i think she's not going tdo that. shs gointo limit the impact what she said she's going to say in context. i wasust sang, i bring my experiences to the table, as a rmer prosecutor, i al do. as former corporate laer, i and the otherhg that is going to be ve effeive body armor for her is her body of

decisis. we've beenalking about the fact that the democrats focus on that, but that is a very,ery important point. she s sat on thoands of cases a there are almosno out which there are any controversy. the only two are the new haven cision and the second amendmentuns decision. that is a remark record. it's a little bit ke sherlock holmes and t dog that didn't rk. that's going to b the body armor thathe's going to pnt out and emphasize at her discretion is goin to be limited by precedent and interrting the constitution and statute >> and cliff, thiis what russ feingold, e of the committee membs had say about the whole questi of judicial activi during his opening statement. >> sma rulings of he conservative majoriton the supreme court can faly be described as activist intheir disregard for precedent and their willingness to ignore or override the intent of congress. at this point, perps we ould l accept that the best deaf fission of a judicial activist

is a judgewho decid a case in a way you n't like. cliff oan, is that the best dense that th have against the republican onslaught regarding judicial activism? >> no. i think anev better defen for judge sotomayor is that there's nothing in her record of these thousands ofases that indicatethat she is a jual activi. and even theemarks in her speeches, which we're going to hear about a t, i think she's ing to be able to dffuse thos very effectively. by the way, i thk she's going to be a terrific witness. at the wte hou ceremony wn president obama introducedher, she s very engaging aboutr compellingife story and we're going to hear a l about that and we'relso going to hear her repeatedly saythat sheas a very limited role of what a judge or justice should do in our system. >> and we've en tol that it's going to be a very brief opening statement, but tat she'sng tory to flesh t the personal

side. professor eiffel, how imrtant is the personal qualies of her remarkab story? >> i think it's criticall portant. people want to know that the nominee is a real person. you know, when justice ginurg came borethe judiciary committee after she tnked all the membe of the committee, the first thing she said was, aisle bklyn bred, a first generation american. providinthat context, providing that who you e is important to allayhe concerns of people who are maybe sitting on the fence, but it'salso important to gi context to th next four or five daysin which there's going to be a lot of potil back and fort this is a human being. sew comes from a real family. she has aeal background and she can relate to peop who are hearing these confirmation hearings and many whore sing and hearing her spea for the firstime. it's going to be very important for her t kind of set h context. and after that, i think cliff's quite rit. you want to get to the decisions. because r decision making is

soolidly mainstreamhat i ink it's going to be really hard tmake a haout of her decisi making, particularly o this quen of h being an tivist. because rely, what marks her judicial decision making is judicial restrat. e talks about it. you can quotes out ofer opinions in whichshe talks about e very narrow, limited role of whatudges do. so i think once she sets that context wh her personal story and dealt with in some qck manner with some of the cments that have concerned republican members of the judiciary committee, s'soing to get to her decision making and i think that's going to be ver powerful for her. >> that's whate'regoing to see. we're going to see judge tomayor and her advocas trying to focus on thedecision making. the critics, like potentially, senator grassley, if heends up voting ainst her, ts is the kind of thing that he was focusing in s own opening statemt. >> at the end of thy, you go back to the statementenator leahy made at the top.

with every supreme cou nomie, we're wdering, what arey going to do when they get on the bench. leahy saidat the ouet, we can guess what she'soing to do by what she's done. this is not a n jue. she's been on the bench for 17 years. so ife've got questionsbout whether she's a partisan, whether she's goingo root for one de or the other or play for one team or the otr, what we do is look at this 17-year record. and if in 17 years she hasn't doneit, she hasn't done it in all of this tim we can speculate she's not going to do that once she gets on the preme court. so thas why the roris so powerful. >> this is the way senator grassley framed it when he made his opening comments. >> pesident obama empathy standard appears to encourage judges to make use of their personallitics, feelings, and preferences. iss contrary to what mos of us to understand to be the role of judiciar that you meurup to his elieves

empathy andard. that worries me. >> cliff sloan, howoes she counract that when she either gives her opening remarks today or in estions and answers tomorrow? >> i think she's going to really emphasize a view that she thinks that a justice is nstrained by precedent anis constrained b principles ofinterpreting the constitution a statute she's going to reallysuggest that there's not a lot of discretionhere. interesting the way the republican senators kept bringing up president obama. because they have a couple different things. on the one hand, th want to say that she's way oside the mainstamr they want to say they'rgoing to look into that. on thether hand, they're taking opresident obama very directly and almost asthough y minee from her with the empathy standard wou raise that. but forllof that, theone, including to by the republicans, it was aery sees responsible tone. d i think that ould be ted.

because when her nominati was firs announced,here were some very ugly, angry comments, t by tse in thesenate, but by radio commentors and otrs, and i think it's a very good thing r the country th we're seeing i these openi statemts a very serious, respsible tone. >> and lindsey graham, in fact, saying tat in fact youave a complete meltdow i suspect you're going to be confirmeand some of th republicans suggesng themight end up voting for her. cliff sl author of "the grt decision" and profess sherrylin ifil thank you very much. newsnd headlines coming up after this break.

good montd, everybody. i'm contessa ewer. we'll join andrea mitchell in just a minut

first, here's a lk at sme of todas top headlines. ree people are under arrest in connection with the murder of a wealthy florida cole known for adopting cildren with development stall dabilial disae the couple had 16 children. two men he en arsted and a third man chargedith evidence tampering. today on the "today" show, one of the couple's dughter spoke about how the family's coping with their parents'murder. >> they had morelove than ybody could ever imagine, ving one person, muchess 17. they were great people andhis is notomething that should have happened to peoplehat were so giving. >> eight of the couple's children were asleep in the house during the murders. police say more arrests are excted. investigators are combing through 100,000 grav at suburban chicago cemetery. they're looking for hun remains that may have been moved by fo former orkers, chard with digging u bodies and reselli ing burial plots.

more than 7,000 families have come forward withoncerns about loved one buried at burr oaks cemetery. reverend jesse jacon is calling an expand investigation into the compy that own burr oak. president obamaas nominated regina benjam to become the next surgeon genera made the announcement in the white house rose garden. >> for all that she seennd all the emendous obstacles that she's overcena benjamin also represents wt's bestbout health care in erica. through floo and fires an severe want, regina benjan has refused tgive up. her tients have refused gi up. >> dr. benjamiis a well-known alabama family physician and was the first black wan to head a state mdil socty. she made headnes after hurricane katra when she rebuilt a health clinic in alabama to serve more than 000 patients. let's goack to and mitchell now and msnbc's special coveragef the confirmation hearin for supre court

nominee snia sotomayor. coming upnext, our special coverage of those confirmation arings of sonia sotomayor. noraho'donnell, richa wolff and bruce fine. stay with us. spectctacur. women who drink crystal light dd 20% more water. crystal l t. make a delicious cnge. crystal l t. to a d dp p mio-clean. olay deep cleaeaerers ach the e micrpapaicles of dirt some b bicic cansers can leleave hihi for a clean so deeeep its micro-clean. olol d deecleansers. to redinair travel for a negeneration. ensure our forces e safer and stronger. to take the rld we share toomomorrow and beyond.

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if guaranteed income for life sounds gooto you, do what i did let fidelity be yo guide. call fidelity at. for details about guaranteed income for li. and as we continue our special coverage of the sonia sotomayor hearings, you're watching live pictures of the hearing room 216 heart pple are beginning to file in from theilunch break. let's go to another side of the . kelly o'donnell over in the senate booth. how is the lineup, the divisions now among those senators? we'll hearromour more senators when they com back from break and then we'll hear the sbrintroductions by the n york senators of sonia sotomayor. but the divisions on ts committee, so far, very poite,

very collegial. the critics have not beenery hard eckled. reporter: well, andre i think this ian important mo for each of those senators in their home states as well. not just the importance on the judge hersf and this incredibly critical phase in her career to be, perhaps, asceing to the higst court in the land. but remember, each senator has an opportunity to spe to his or her home constituents as we. so they'll be judged byheir conduct, are they respectful, are theyaying out key points. and wve seen repcans alady setting a stage for wanting be tough,ut often feing the needto say tat they'rbeing respectful, in ca anymissed it, theyant to reinforce that. and you heard from ndsey grah, for example, of suess, sayio the judge tt unless there's aomplete meltdown, talk about an easyay to describe it, you will be confirmed. then h followed up by saying that hedoes notxpect that.

so on that first day when pele are paying a lot of attention, it's a chance to lay out somef the visi and even away from this hearing roo anrea, the leaders of the repubcans in the senate, mitchell mcconne, gave a floor speech about this nomination and jue sotomayor an laying out the differens as they see it. so when she is inoduced by her fell new rkers, the two senato, ere will be much more praise. her ownemarks will, in some ways, echo at she said at the time that present obama trod her to the nation a her selection. a lot about her personal experience, a bit about her judicial philosophy, whichill be really at t centerof so of the questioning at will come inhese following days. >> kelly o'donnell, up there in the senate gallery and we n tu to our fies and lleagues here, richard wolffe and bruce fine,onstitutional la expert, richard wolffe or of "renegad"renegade." this is really a moment of

political ama for the nators aswell. >> and one of the mos interesting pieces of the ama is seeing republicans take on this first latina nominee and try not to seem like they're opposing all latino terests. they're going after these and it's a hard line for th to tread. 're seng peopleth siificant latina voting in their own states and havg to tread this line. is whole distinction about subjve and objective judgments, let's be clear. supreme court stices have to decide ings personally. ifny of these decisions re easy and could be decided objectivel then they would, decided at a lower court. sovery nominee is important. that's whye have these hearin. i like the whole id that there's some objective ideal out there, but the reason you go intohesonal stie their backgrounds, because we care about their opinions. because they will be influential on a personal and objecve s. >> bruce fe,ne of the story

lines that her supports have be laying out is thathe's had all of these years on the bench, and she has in two notable cases, has not done anythingugely ntroversial. soou know what youe getting here. yet your point is that with the ca of justice blackman, justice stephens and others, justice souter most recently you don't necessarily know what you're gng to get when they ascend to the high cour >> the reas is quite clear, andrea. the preme court has informed and instructed all lower cour, you n't overrule anything, we do. you're bou within the parameters, the precedents we've given ou. and that is accepted. wh you're on the supreme court, you can votto revee opinions. you' not constrained. anreally, despite all this arguing about the decision stands in precedence, the cou really ovruled the precedent when witht wants to. me of them are applauded, brown versus board of education,

some of them a viewed with grear chagri some ofhe decisis of the old warren court lending the eclusionary rule, but t court does this regularly. in its history, it'soveul maybe 250, 300 cases. and somef them are quite important. ey overred one case relating to race and whher it n be used as preference in construction a they may overrule tir cases on the votingrights act the future. >> in fact,y've beeniing ward that. they've been hinting that the life, the laws, theulture and practice iour country have evol evolved. >> and that can no longer have states go to e courts. and imilarly, the court in 1996 said, constitutionally, legislatures can tel corporations,ou c give any money whatsoever in pitical campaigns. now in september, they're going to re-examine that case andhey may rule that's unconstitutional. deprives those cporations

of free spch rights. so it does make a difference whether yore on a court of appeals or on the supreme court. it's a little biast to say we know how she's going to act as a supreme courjust by looking at her rord as a cou of appeals judge. but i nt to go back to another theme thathe public has made about thes jucial activisms you shoun't be out there imposing your philosophy on the country. and it's a hollow argument for the republicans toe making. take four major aas tt ar quite conoversial in which their theos are what judges should be doing are the opposite of what they y, not imposing their views. ey takehe issue of affiate action. and in the ricc case, here's whereudge somayor deferred to what the legislature was doing -- >> she let the w haven decision stand. the political desion. >> and then that becomes someh controversial. t her argument could , buti didn't want to oppose my view. i didn't decide whethe to use

the tes or not, i w just deferring to the politicians. let's take the issue o guns. she didn't decide wheth the shooter should not be gun restrictions. she was justaying,s the republicans would say to be a judici restraint,e're leaving it up tthe states and locals to decide whether there should be gun control. andou'll remember t very controversial terry schiavo issue down in florida? that kinof argument is going to fall flat because it's lf-contradictory how the republicans apply . >> if the democrs are successful in puncturing it. you can may as many contradictions as you want as long as nobody point it out to you. chard, in tes what this does for president obama, barrin a meltdn, to use the phrase of lindsey grahamin the rst part of the hearingtoday, barring a meltdown, she is likely to not only be confirmed, but likely to be confirmed, they're hoping, wh more than 73 votes. t's say, more than what

justiceoberts got. >> it does come down to authory and the wisdom othe pick. i was speang to a veteran of these processe recently and they said, loo you can go through all the prepping you li, but in the nd, either the desion's a good one, to pic this nominee, or it's a badone. and we saw a bad one looks like harriet myers and they think th looks like good on that whyrepublicans are ally using this as a proxy battle. >> we should point out that the whe house has not pleased the bera left of the party as much as some would like, bcause she tends to be a more mainstam libal. she's not on the fr, on either fringe. >> well, i think that that is true, but he's got a track reco as candidate and esident not really giving the base what they wanted, and even when he voted against yourself he went on daily coast t berate the base for attacking people, mocrats, who votedor

yosejohn rober roberts. >> didn't you reporthat he nted to vote for john roberts but his political advisers thght ouldn't because he had politicalambitions. >> his hope w that if he voted for john robes, republicans would return the favor if he was president and tey said, dot be ridicou and naive. you've got to be vote with the base >> stay with us. we'll be back in a moment. msnbc's special coverage of the confirmation hearing of soa sotomayor continues in just a moment >> unless youave a complete meltdown, u'reng to be confirme and i don't thin you will, but you know the drama's being created here is interestg. (p(pouring rain)

i had a great time. me too. you knowowjustot out of a bad relatio.. it's okay. anan.

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good day. i'm contessa brewer. we'll get back t andrea mitchell. first, some breaking newjust coming io us. cnbc is reporting that bernie madoff, the 71ear-old coicted ponzi schemer is now leaving manhattan, heading for an undisclosed prison where is sentenced to serve out50 years for his crime. again, bernie madoff on the move as speak to anundisclosed prison. we'll stay on top of th. the vice president's we, jill biden is scheduled for orthopedic surgery tod in philelphia to relieve oulder pain. she' have the outpatnt procedure performed at thomas jefferson hospital and joe biden is expected be with his wife. e bidens will spend the rest of today and tomorrow atheir home in delaware. new information regarding e healthf north korean leader kim jong-il. he may be suffering from life-threatening pancreatic cancer, althgh the diagnosis has not been confirmed by official sourc this comes day after images of

kim jongl looking frail sparked speculation that his health could be worsening. who will lead north korea in t future? the state dartment says u.s. ambassador to iraq, christopher hill, were among a group of u.s. psonnel who ren't hurt after adece exploded near their convoyn iraq. many questions remain aut michael jacksos health in the da leadg up to his death a duri his final rearsal the staples center. hi ctor, the l. doctor said that he loed great, that he performe well, says he was healthy and vibran meantime, some of the pop star's personal handlers tell a differt story. they called him frail and a dru abuser. l.a. investigats are honing in on jacon's personal doctors as they wait for toxicology reports. > more stormy weatr this eving could put off asa's fih attempt to launch the

space shuttle "endeavour." storms preven them from blasting off last night. nasa hasuntil tomorrow or possibly wednesday to lach "endeavour" with the final pie of japan's space stion b. "endeavour"stronauts are scduled to spend two weeks at th international spacstation. they have ve planned space walks. trying to everything in bere the window closes. and let's go back to andrea mitcll now. andrea? >> thanks, conssa. we'll haore specialovage ofhe senate judiciary committe hearings which you'll see next when they recoene after the nch break. four moreenators making their own aicipopening statements. arlen specter probablyround 2:20, according to committee scdule. then the troduction of sonia sotomayor by her oal state senators, chuck schumer and kirsten gillibrd, coming up. we're going to go to a break and after that chris matthews picks up our overage. i'll be joining him from the continuing msnbc secial

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're back forthe afternoon session for the opening day really of this long fight we expect to have over the nomination of sonia sotomayor for the supreme urt. let's go to norah o'doell who's overlooking the hearing room. >> you can see a lot of the setors beginning to fer ba in. we'll hear fm three more senators deliver their opening statements including senator ecter. we'l also hear from senator al franken. it see weird to even say that. 's goi to make some remark as well. then from senators gillibrand and schumer, who will introduce jue sotomayor. itas senior offial who said that judge sotomayor is

going to be very personal in her commen. she's going talk about this azg life story, growing up in aublic housing, losin her father at age nine. her mother working as aurse to send her and her brother to private, catholicchools. her brothe w to yale medical school. she's also going to fill out some of her professional background as we and talk about h career and h she's se cases of abuse when she worked new york. children whoere abused. i k we'll see is larger portrait. the president trieto know when he introdud her to the plic d she talked abou but there's gng to be more of that this afternoon and clearly, that's the highlight the briefings day. and then finally, chris, just some colorr what i've been learning and talking to people, she's still got that gnt cast

on her leg that she's had diiculty walking around usin crutches, so a lot of tho 89 senators she met with actually came and met with her. she's moving around a litt better now, but apparently, ankle gets swollen very easy. she's got to elevate her kle to make sure it doesn'tet swolle so clearly, that's one of t other things goin on, her health. chris? >> let me as you about your observion of these hecers. both n,bortion rights opponents. there any indications there are more come today? >> i tnk that always -- >>ook at people in the cowd that might have isame look, the rough cut -- one guy with the ponytail, that says it a about his political views. >> this the united states

senate. it is an open building. there are sats tt are marke right behind methere areeats for the family, the prs and thpublic. if you are a member ofthe public and youant to come and art of and listeno judge sotomayor's confiation hearings, you can do hat. you ll have to wait in line. that's how theprotesrs got in here. one of them calling abortn genocide, one wi the long ir, also speaking in spanish. i thinkthat just happens. in all of these hearings that i've be to people try and ice some opposition or trynd be heard. that's part of the nature of this building and our demoacy that they can that, but ey are quickly escted out. term o the fireworks between senators andsotoyor, we're going to see a lot of that tomorrow. ths been a lot of chatter about some tough remar, the tone already that some

republics senators have tak led by the ranking republican. setor jeff sessions, w said he fnd it offensive that jge tomayor's psonal background would weigh in some of her decision making. that'shere you're going to see some pushbk by judge sotomayor anthe democrats. there is been a lot of talk of how justice ginsburg pointed out to the other eightmen in that rip search case, noneof the restf you know what it's like to be a 14-yeaold girl. it's been pointed t, ruce, fine,with you, that justice claren thas in the cross burning case. thenne other thing in speaking with the senior administration official, theye trying to make