Bush's judges

[akarunway 1]

Tomorrow, March 10th, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider the nomination of mining and cattle industry lobbyist William Myers III for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals—the second highest court in the land. Myers is the first of 20 judicial nominees Bush has re-submitted in his second term. All 20 repeat nominees were rejected last term by Senate Democrats (as compared to the 204 judges they accepted) because these nominees consistently sided with corporate special-interests over the rights of ordinary Americans.

This time, Bush is ready to fight dirty to force these nominees through. Dick Cheney has even threatened to use a parliamentary trick to eliminate the centuries-old rule requiring judges to have broad support in the Senate. This would effectively silence all 44 Democratic senators and the 173 million Americans they represent—the majority of the country.

With the first crucial vote on the first judge in less than a day, we're launching a national campaign to let our senators know that we out here in America are counting on them to hold the line on all 20 of Bush's rejected, corporate judges, and beat back his dirty parliamentary tricks.

The first phase is this national petition that we will hand deliver to your senators before the confirmation votes for the 20 judges. And tomorrow, MoveOn members will host over 1000 house meetings to create local plans to save the judiciary. The courts we have for the next 30 years may depend on your efforts in the next few weeks.

Please sign today:
http://www.moveonpac.org/judges/

To ram his nominees through, Bush is hoping to use a parliamentary trick the Republicans refer to as the "nuclear option." For 200 years, if enough senators strongly objected to a federal judge, they could use a filibuster to force more debate until all their concerns were addressed. That's how Democrats blocked the worst of these 20 nominees last term. Actually changing the rule would require a 2/3 vote of the Senate—and Bush doesn't have near that level of support.

So instead, Vice President Cheney has threatened to abuse his authority as President of the Senate, and just declare that the right to filibuster judges is null and void. If Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist can twist enough arms to get 50 senators to support the ruling, the filibuster is history. For the first time ever, one party would have complete control over judicial nominations, all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Both parties in the Senate were given the power to approve or reject judicial nominations because—above all else—judges must be trusted by Americans on all sides to rule fairly. So why does Bush refuse to send a few replacement nominees both parties can agree on? Why is he so intent on smashing Democratic resistance to these and all future nominees? Because while his presidency will be over in 4 years, the judges he appoints will be on the bench for the rest of their lives. This is Bush's big push to lock in his hard-right, corporate-friendly ideology for decades to come—and that is exactly why we must not back down now.

The whole plot is set into motion tomorrow, with the committee vote on William Myers. We must draw the line here, by stopping Bush's 20 repeat nominees and standing up to the "nuclear option."

Please sign the petition today:
http://www.moveonpac.org/judges/

Thanks for all that you do,

--Ben Brandzel, Eli Pariser and the whole MoveOn PAC Team
Wednesday, March 9th, 2005

P.S. Here's a brief summary of just the first three of the 20 partisan judges re-nominated by President Bush.

William Myers III has never been a judge and spent most of his career as a lobbyist for the cattle and mining industry. [1] He has written that all habitat conservation laws are unconstitutional because they interfere with potential profit. [2] In 2001, Bush appointed him as the chief lawyer for the Department of the Interior. In that role he continued as a champion of corporate interests, setting his agenda in meetings with former employers he promised not to speak with, and even illegally giving away sacred Native American land to be strip mined. [3]

Terrence Boyle was a legal aide to Jesse Helms. As a judge, his signature decisions have attempted to circumvent federal laws barring employment discrimination by race, gender, and disability. [4] His rulings have been overturned a staggering 120 times by the conservative 4th District Court of Appeals, either due to gross errors in judgment or simple incompetence. [5]

William Pryor Jr. served as Attorney General of Alabama, where he took money from Phillip Morris, fought against the anti-tobacco lawsuit until it was almost over, and cost the people of Alabama billions in settlement money for their healthcare system as a result. [6] He called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history," and has consistently argued against the federal protections for the civil rights of minorities, lesbian and gay couples, women, and the disabled.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[lawrocket 3]

Hmmm. First off, as an aside, take a look at moveon's endorsements. https://www.moveonpac.org/candidates.html Notice that out of almost 30 candidates that it ensorses, only 3 are minorities? Meanwhile, moveon is attacking members of racial minorities.

Honestly, have you ever seen such a non-diverse group? And yet, they set their sights on the likes of Janice Rogers Brown and Miguel Estrada. Moveon seems to me to seek only to continue to hold down minorities.

Now, to some more interesting stuff. William Pryor, whom you mentioned, was nominated for a judgeship on April 9, 2003. This guy has been waiting two years simply for a vote. AN UP OR DOWN VOTE!

Said one Senator, "“[D]elays can only be described as an abdication of the Senate’s constitutional responsibility to work with the President and ensure the integrity of our federal courts” and "“The continuing delays are a gross perversion of the confirmation process that has served this country well for more than 200 years.”

That same senator even said, "“When the Founders wrote the Constitution and gave the Senate the power of advice and consent on Presidential nominations, they never intended the Senate to work against the President, as this Senate is doing, by engaging in a wholesale stall and refusing to act on large numbers of the President’s nominees.”

Now, I don't agree with invoking a parliamentary procedure to change the rules of cloture.

However, I still find such biographical quotes amusing. Like the following:

On Meyers:
"William Myers III has never been a judge (so what?)

In 2001, Bush appointed him as the chief lawyer for the Department of the Interior. In that role he continued...even illegally giving away sacred Native American land to be strip mined." (What land, where, and how sacred was it? You know, it would have made a better point had they left "sacred" out of it.

On Boyle:
"Terrence Boyle was a legal aide to Jesse Helms." - (yeah, that's bad. He should have been defending bridge-veering drunk drivers.)

"His rulings have been overturned a staggering 120 times by the conservative 4th District Court of Appeals, either due to gross errors in judgment or simple incompetence." - (First, leave staggering out of it. You lose your point. Next, 120 ain't bad in a long career, but those questions are more complicated, arent' they? Like, whether the US Supreme Court reversed an appeals court that reversed Boyle, as happened in Cromartie v. Hunt.

Also, what's up with this, "gross errors...simple incompetence" stuff? Grandstanding to the nth degree.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[MC208B 0]

I endorse Bush's judicial nominees. They will interept the law, not make their own laws like the, well, you know who judges.

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

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I endorse Bush's judicial nominees. They will interept the law, not make their own laws like the, well, you know who judges.

Riiiight. And Bush will protect the environment, create jobs, be diplomatic, won't buy out the media, piss off the world when they were united in their support for us, he won't take rights away from the states, nor would he remove and abuse personal freedoms, etc, etc etc .....I see very little good this President has really done for the long term good of the people of the US.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[TheAnvil 0]

Look harder.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[lawrocket 3]

Who knows. Maybe these judges, if appointed, will sell out, as well. THink of Blackmun, a Nixon appointee to the Supremes, who turned out to be pretty liberal. (He'd have never made it to his first appointment today. He was appointed first to the appeals court, having never been a judge before. Ike appointed him. (shudder)).

All I know is that it's an odd thing of checks and balances here. Say what you want about the president, but the longest effect is left by the judiciary. The executive and legislative branches are not bound by precedent like courts are.

What's most pathetic is how both sides are doing a 180 degree turn on this. The senator I quoted above was none other than Ted Kennedy a mere five or six years ago when the Republicans threatened filibuster.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

Do you feel the filabuster is a good or bad thing? From my basic understanding it seems to allow a balance by either side. I'm curious to hear the opinion on someone that knows the system better than I do.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

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Look harder.

Vinny, it's no big secret that I think he is a terrible President. To this day I feel his negatives far outway any good he has done. There hasn't been a republican that has put together an argument to make me think otherwise. My ears are open for someone that is willing to try.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[lawrocket 3]

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My ears are open for someone that is willing to try.

Okay. What, to you, makes a good president?

BTW - I never voted for him.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

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My ears are open for someone that is willing to try.

Okay. What, to you, makes a good president?

I don't have time to put all that down while at work today (I've been working 12 hour days for most of the last two weeks). Will try to get around to that later. I prefer to hear the reasons why people feel he is that great of a President first instead of tearing apart my reply to your question.

If just over half of this country voted for him there should be a reason why (besides not being John Kerry). I am honestly curious about this.

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BTW - I never voted for him.

Interesting, with the way you defend him I would have guessed that you did.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[lawrocket 3]

Defending him? I rarely defend him. But I DO defend him (and just about anybody, for that matter) against puffery and other statements that seek to make qualitative feelings into quantified empirical evidence.

Calling reversals evidence of "gross errors in judgment or simple incompetence" is simply an attack which is not justifiable. A judge may rule on 100 objections PER DAY in a trial. Assuming he's in trial 150 days per year, that's 15,000 objections. Let's go onservatively and say 7,000 objections per year. Also, there can be ten issues for one motion. Being overruled 120 times in a career ain't that bad.

Calling cases his, "signature decisions?" That's ridiculous. He doesn't decide what cases he gets.

This is the kind of puffing and spin that I find unacceptable. Rush Limbaugh says stuff like that, only from the right.

I want to know what, to you, makes a good president. Why? Because the reasons are different for everybody. What makes a great president for me does not make one for you. So, let us know, and we'll provide evidence that may have you think a second time about whether Bush is "terrible."

A quote from me from October of last year - "Has Bush fucked up? Plenty. But, let's have these Harvard chaps offer EMPIRICAL evidence instead of political posturing."

I have, and would, defend Clinton the same way...

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[rehmwa 2]

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I DO defend ... against puffery and other statements that seek to make qualitative feelings into quantified empirical evidence.

That statement just about puts everything right for me.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[lawrocket 3]

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Do you feel the filabuster is a good or bad thing?

I think the filibuster is a good thing. Anything that keeps the Congress from doing something (look - Congress is not in the business of increasing our freedom. They pass laws that do nothing but abridge our freedoms pice by piece) is a good thing.

Why not put these folks on trial for a full Senate hearing. Let the Dems in the Senate try to Bork them. Call in C-Span. Present the evidence in a hearing that allows the opportunity to rebut.

Then filibuster the vote after the hearings in th full Senate.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[TheAnvil 0]

I don't like filibustering judicial nominees at all, though I do support the filibuster concept. The Constitution does not call out a super-majority requirement for the advising and consenting of judicial nominees, as it clearly does elsewhere.

I also don't like the Republicans caving in to the threat of a filibuster. Make the losers get up there and actually filibuster and keep the senate in session until a floor vote comes. Televise the filibuster in progress. Show the Dem's making buffoons out of themselves. Make them follow through on their threat. They can't even tell America what they support - what makes ANYONE think they'll have the guts to actually follow through?

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!