Today the Senate Judiciary Committee kicks off confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. She is President Obama's first appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, and if she is confirmed she will make history as the first Hispanic on the high court. Joining us for a preview of the confirmation process is Dahlia Lithwick. She is the senior legal correspondent for Slate and joins us from Washington, DC. For more on Sonia Sotomayor, watch the video below.

Today is opening day of Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. The Takeaway talks to Washington Correspondent Todd Zwillich on what to expect. (Todd will tweet live from the hearings, so follow them on TheTakeaway's Twitter feed.)

The Obamas arrived back home this weekend after a two-week trip through Europe and Africa. Michelle Obama with her mom and two kids joined the president in Moscow, and from there went to Italy and Ghana. While the president's schedule was widely publicized, The Takeaway looks at what the rest of the family was up to. Lynn Sweet, who writes the column The Daily Flotus for Politics Daily and is Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, talks about what the first family did on the trip.

This week in The Takeaway's Monday agenda: the Senate confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor, the health care debate continues, bank earnings out this week may cause some controversy and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in Europe and the Middle East. The Takeaway is joined by Marcus Mabry, the International Business Editor for The New York Times. Also joining the show is the BBC's Diplomatic Correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

Today the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor begin. To find out more about the nominee, we talk to Margarita Rosa, the Executive Director of Grand Street Settlement in New York who first met Sonia Sotomayor when they were undergrads at Princeton. We are also joined by Ellen Chapnick, Dean of the Social Justice Program at Columbia Law School and a Lecturer–in-Law. She co-taught a class with Sonia Sotomayor and has known her since the late 1990’s.

Every Monday, The Takeaway focuses on the family. Today, author Jeremy Adam Smith joins us to talk about his young son and discuss the provocative question of whether parents unconsciously raise kids to be racists. He is the author of “Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting Are Transforming the American Family."

Click through for a transcript of this interview.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to withhold information from Congress for eight years regarding a secret counter-terrorism program. C.I.A. director Leon Panetta told the Senate and House intelligence committees back in June about this and immediately put an end to the program. The program never became fully operational but details of it still remain classified. Joining The Takeaway is The New York Times National Security Reporter, Scott Shane.

To talk about Dick Cheney's CIA counter-terrorism program and the rights of the Executive Branch and Congress is Laurence Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School.

The Takeaway talks to Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz. He’s a professor of law at Georgetown University –and he’s a testifying against Judge Sonia Sotomayor at the Senate confirmation hearings this week.

On Friday General Motors emerged from bankruptcy after only forty days in Chapter 11. Now they’re trying to project the image of the “new” GM. What new cars will they roll out—and what are the company's chances of actually making a profit? Joining The Takeaway from Detroit is Bob Lutz, GM’s Vice Chairman. Lutz began his career in the auto industry in 1963 and he’s in charge of brands, marketing, advertising and communications for GM.
Click through for a transcript of our discussion with Bob Lutz.

As Judge Sonia Sotomayor takes the stand at the confirmation hearings this week, there's a lot of behind-the-scenes prepping. A "Sherpa"--named after local mountain guides who take foreign explorers up the Himalayas -- helps to guide Supreme Court nominees to the summit of gaining Senate confirmation. Joining The Takeaway is Jamie Brown, the Sherpa behind the confirmation of the last two successful Supreme Court nominations, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. She was also formerly a legislative affairs aid for the White House under President George W. Bush.

The NAACP has gathered in New York for a six-day convention celebrating its 100-year anniversary. It’s an enormous affair with giants such as Cornel West, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and President Obama paying tribute to the accomplishments of the civil rights organization. The civil rights group was formed by a multi-racial coalition in 1909, sparked in 1908 by a deadly race riot in Springfield Illinois. Nearly a century later, Barack Obama launched his presidential campaign not far from where the riot took place. Looking at the challenges ahead and its past accomplishments we are joined by Melissa Harris-Lacewell. She is an Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University.

Read about what was life was like for black Americans in 1909.

The Takeaway will be covering the convention all week long. Tomorrow we continue the conversation with the artists' take on the NAACP’s legacy. We’ll be joined by musical sensation DJ Spooky and poet Elizabeth Alexander.