I’m kinda torn by this news:
No longer able simply to defend choices made by a fellow Republican, as they did under President George W. Bush, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have turned into vocal critics of many of President Obama’s legal nominees. They complain that several are committed liberal ideologues, much in the way Democrats complained that Mr. Bush’s choices were committed conservative ideologues.
But so far, facing a solid Democratic majority in the Senate, they have been able to do little beyond briefly delaying confirmation. Now they are weighing whether to use the filibuster — a threat of extended debate, the tool many Republican senators regularly denounced when it was used by Democrats to block some Republican nominees. These are certainly different times.
The current Republican focus is on a pair of nominees: Mr. Obama’s first selection for a federal appeals court seat, David F. Hamilton, and his choice to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, Dawn Johnsen. (By coincidence, the two are in-laws.)
Well, if it was fair for the Democrats to use this tactic during Bush’s term….it’s fair now. But I also understand elections have consequences.
BUT…..the two they are thinking about blocking deserve to be blocked from confirmation. First is the nominee to a federal appellate court seat, David F. Hamilton, who is just plain incompetent AND super liberal:
It’s far from clear what justifies the article’s characterization of Hamilton as a “moderate” (or, as the article oddly puts it, as “represent[ing] some of his state’s traditionally moderate strain”—how does one represent some of a strain?). Was it perhaps Hamilton’s service as vice president for litigation, and as a board member, of the Indiana branch of the ACLU? Or maybe Hamilton’s extraordinary seven-year-long series of rulings obstructing Indiana’s implementation of its law providing for informed consent on abortion?That obstruction elicited this strong statement (emphasis added) from the Seventh Circuit panel majority that overturned Hamilton:
For seven years Indiana has been prevented from enforcing a statute materially identical to a law held valid by the Supreme Court in Casey, by this court in Karlin, and by the fifth circuit in Barnes. No court anywhere in the country (other than one district judge in Indiana [i.e., Hamilton]) has held any similar law invalid in the years since Casey. Although Salerno does not foreclose all pre-enforcement challenges to abortion laws, it is an abuse of discretion for a district judge to issue a pre-enforcement injunction while the effects of the law (and reasons for those effects) are open to debate.
Or perhaps Hamilton’s inventive invocation of substantive due process to suppress evidence of a criminal defendant’s possession of
cocainemarijuana, a ruling that, alas, was unanimously reversed by the Seventh Circuit?With “moderates” like Hamilton, imagine what Obama’s “liberal” nominees will look like.
And Ed Morrissey describes the other nominee for head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, Dawn Johnsen:
Rather than appoint a moderate, Obama has clearly chosen a committed Leftist to the Office of Legal Counsel, the body that advises all executive-branch agencies on legalities of policy and process. Senate Republicans have mostly objected to the partisan tenor of her objection to Bush-era OLC opinions, but as Neil Lewis points out, most of those opinions got withdrawn towards the end of the Bush administration anyway. But Kathryn Jean Lopez rightly points out that her positions and former arguments on abortion — equating it to emancipation — make Johnsen a radical regardless of the eventual resolution of the Bush-era OLC memos.
Having major lefties being nominated for these positions instead of moderates, whom Bush almost always nominated, should be challenged….especially on incompetence. And maybe, just maybe, this will force the Democrats to go to the nuclear option and we can do away with this tactic forever.
See author page
‘Bout time we give them a taste of their own dirty medicine. I’ve always been upset with the Reps when they go along with crazy Dem ideas, or just don’t oppose them enough. Make them work for what they get, and maybe prevent at least some of the worst damage they would otherwise cause.
It is a dirty but legal tactic and had the Dems considered that they might have to face the same when they employed the filibuster, they might have had second thoughts about using it at all or only on the rare occasion. Goes around comes around. Now how about we get on with the business of removing Rangel, Dodd, Frank, and other paragons of Democrat ethics?
I remember the Dems called our good, qualified nominees “radicals.” That was a laugher when they solid good judges. If Obama’s nominees are from the “Radical Left,” they do need be filibustered. If any of the idiots on the 9th Circus are the standard Obama wants to use for his judges then they need to be filibustered. If they are good candidates, let them through to show the Dems how government is supposed to work.
http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/
Sorry kids ain’t gonna work. And please remember (or ggogle) THE NUCLEAR OPTION. Elections DO have consequences and Obama’s presidency has only just begun. And The Democrats will be picking up more seats in the Senate in 2010, and will put them over the magic 60
If the Democrats use the budget rules to ramrod through Cap and Trade and Health Care by making it part of the Senate reconciliation process, Republicans should filibuster ALL Democrat initiatives.
Being the party of “No” really isn’t so bad here.
@tfhr:
Sounds like a plan to me.
Looks like someone should have stopped the appointment of William Welch II in March 2007.
A filibuster? With the likes of Specter, Snowe, Collins and so many others? You have to be kidding.
Republicans showing that they a spine, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Dave Noble #7, you are not only OT, but your reality timeline sucks as I pointed out on the appropriate thread.
The FBI/IRS investigation began in 2004 (under Ashcroft), really hit the ground with a raid on his house in July of 2007 (under Gonzales) and trial/conviction was done under Mukasey’s AG term.
That said, Welch (appointed by Gonzales in Mar 2007) was doing his appointed job, prosecuting for the FBI/IRS…. not investigating. The main fault for injustice lies with Judge Emmet Sullivan who refused to grant a mistrial despite the obvious errors by the prosecution.
You got anything else to snipe, or further attempts to mischaracterize Gonzales on this issue, take it to the appropriate thread please.
And my apologies to Curt for the redirect on this thread.
we are in for it. a filibuster wold be great, but i don’t really see that happening. i did like when they all stayed after and they were still talking and the lights were turned off on them. that was classic. we need to show the dems we are not backing down. mata, dave needs to be constructive, not arrogant. what ever happened to craig from canada?
Come on now, luva… we’re all pretty familiar with Mr. Dave by now, eh? Let’s not expect the pigeon to become the phoenix.
INRE Craig, left in a huff of his own volition for two-fold reasons. First, we wouldn’t get on the “Obama’s an illegal alien” bandwagon; and second, we wouldn’t ban opposing liberal/progressive voices en masse. I’m sure you’d run into him if you haunted some libertarian or “birthers” sites.
@MataHarley: not a fan of the “nutty” sights. little more mainstream here. i did like craigs interest in our country but he did get carried away at times. and i do know dave is loving his kool aid and can’t see the forest through the trees. so far in this administration i am seeing nothing but rookie level play, they still haven’t realized this is the bigs.
@MataHarley:
Speaking of “reality timeline,” remember when Dave IgNoble said that America was bad in WWII because we could have used “Surgical attacks on Hiroshima’s industrial areas and military installations”, instead of nuking it? I still get a kick over that one. Evrything he knows is wrong. but at least his idiocy is sometimes entertaining.
I like your pigeon analogy. It fits with the way he drops his guano when he makes his surgical strikes on OT targets here.
Yon,
Hey, pal, it’s bad manners, not to mention weak, to talk about somebody behind their back to a third person. And it’s foolhardy if there’s a good chance they will catch you.
You seem fascinated with excrement. Something in your childhood? Guano is bat, not pigeon excrement. I guess when you’re fascinated with feces any crap will do. And still with the silly names.
And I hate to take your childish bait, but even with WWII technology, the bombers could have struck the military facilities without directly hitting the population center. That was done for reasons other than military necessity. You know that, but it’s more fun to be cute. And you love to be cute.
BTW, I think you got the city wrong. I believe we were talking about Tokyo. With Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the objective was clear. The population was definitely the target. The goal was to terrorize the Japanese people and bring them to their knees. But no matter, my original point stands for all three cities, as with Dresden. We deliberately targeted non-combatants. That fits not uncommon definition of terrorism.
Re: Tokyo
The Superforts returned in force at the end of the month, flying at altitudes that insured immunity from attacks by Japanese defenders. Although their high altitude provided a shield for the bombers, it also decreased the accuracy and impact of their bomb runs. To correct this deficiency, Major-General Curtis Lemay (newly appointed commander of the American Bomber Command) ordered a dramatic change in tactics. The bomber runs would be made at night, at low altitude and deliver a mixture of high explosive and incendiary bombs. The objective was to turn the closely-packed, wooden homes and buildings prevalent in the Japanese cities into raging infernos and ultimately into the most destructive of all weapons – the firestorm.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tokyo.htm
Notice: Fly low/at night=increased accuracy. The population centers were not collateral damage. they were the target. You can play with the semantics of “surgical/precision” all you want. Although we did not have “precision” munitions we could have largely avoided the center of the city. We didn’t because that was our target.
See you on the proper thread, Mata. Yon’s discussion of WWII bombing was certainly on point on this thread, wasn’t it?
Dave, you are a moron. Dresden was an industrial target first and
foremost which has been proven over and over again. Yes I know you
aren’t capabale of seeing that which does not fit into your leftist
fantasy/mental illness.
Not to mention it was a declared war and that is why war is so horrible.
Only an idiot wants it to be a touchy feely war like you do.
as has been said, efforts to sanitize war will only prolong it.
BTW, Yon commented on an open forum. NOT behind your back. You really are
mentally defective.
@luva the scissors:
Craig can frequently be found at the Home Planet of yours truly and I hardly qualify as a “birther” or a libertarian.
Mata does appear to like her lefty moonbat pet trolls and that’s something Craig found intolerable.
I’ll pass along your kind remarks to Craig.
Thanks for the psychoanalysis, HardRight. I am however, a crazy moron who can read
Now why don’t you do the same and some historical analysis of Dresden. It will only take the use of Google and a few moments of your time. You don’t have to go to some special pacifist site or left wing blame-America-first site. Any good historical site will do.
History knows no political ideology.
Ummmm Dave, like most liberals you seem to think that if anyone
disagrees with you then they are the ones who are ignorant or
suffering from ideological blindness. Sorry guy, but I have been
over the Dresden issue with other leftists and you are the one grossly guilty of projection.
Like I said, you are not capable of accepting that which does not
fit into your reality.
@Dave Noble
SPEAKING OF “TAKING THE BAIT”
OK, I’ll bite one more time, since you are such a glutten for punishment.
If I wanted to talk about you behind your back, I would email the people I wanted to share the gossip with. But I don’t do that. Besides, just how “foolhardy” is it when I know the fool is listening? There would be no point if you weren’t, because that WOULD be talking behind your’re back, and I don’t do that. (repetition enabled for the benefit of the thinking impaired reader).
That’s right, Dave, they HAD to turn those private dwellings into a candle, a la Dresden, in order for the pilots to better see where to drop the conventional explosives, and decrease their chances of missing and also of being shot down. That’s your “precision bombing?”
The problem is that it’s still not very precise, and it wouldn’t have ended the war early and prevented much worse alternative scenarios, any of which would have included death tolls in the many hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions. Furthermore, you would have only reduced the death toll of any specific strike by about 1/2 to 1/5 of that of the nuclear strike. What a humanitarian you are! (sarcasm)
So, let me see if I have this right. You say we should have bombed at night, but we shouldn’t have firebombed the civilian homes, which if we hadn’t done, we wouldn’t have been able to fly low or see anything at night, and so we couldn’t have bombed at night after all? Is that what you are saying, Dave? (repetition enabled…..)
BTW, the Nagasaky bomb, fat boy, was dropped in between the two military targets to maximize damage to both. The population centers weren’t the main target there. It may be harder to argue with Hiroshima, but probably not too. I just don’t want to waste any more time unravelling your convoluted nonsense.
You have been, and remain, a waste of time.
(comment bookmarked for future use)
CORRECTION…
The bomb dropped on Nagasaki was “Fat Man” not “fat boy.” Sorry.
That dropped on Hiroshima was “Little Boy.”
Hmmm, “Innocent Civilians?”
Like the leaders of the “Palestinians,” the Japanese leadership made everyone a soldier, even schoolgirls.
It was Japan, and NOT America that was responsible for the unnecessary deaths.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zkzYN5qKT0
(note that it was the industrialized cities that were the targets)
But Zero-Bungler thinks he can talk to sociopaths. And he has all too many moonbat followers, like Dave Noble. Unless we can get some real conservatives in office, and more importantly, block far leftist judges from being nominated, we are in deep trouble.
UPDATE – Truman urged Japanese civilians to flee industrial cities critical to their war effort.
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:7591Y9dCzooJ:millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3821+%22I+urge+Japanese+civilians+to+leave+industrial+cities+immediately,+and+save+themselves+from+destruction.%22&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Was it “terror?” Of course it was, because you don’t want your enemy to retain any confidence that they can win. Was it criminal? Only in the eyes of the losers, and of those who hate the victor. It would only be evil if we kept doing it after it was no longer necessary, as did the Japanese whenever and wherever they won.