Democrats' bad faith and obstruction on judges

Washington Examiner Editorial:

It is difficult not to think of two words — lies and hypocrisy — when reviewing the promises and foot dragging on President Bush’s judicial nominees by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont. These two senators have arbitrarily blocked scores of qualified nominees without even giving them the courtesy of a committee vote.

The latest outrage came when the Senate adjourned for Memorial Day without abiding by Reid’s April 15 commitment to “to get three judges approved for our circuit [courts] before the Memorial Day recess” while suggesting that “we may even get lucky and get more than that [because] we have a number of people from whom to choose.” Instead of three or more confirmations, Reid and Leahy allowed only one. None of the others even received committee consideration, much less a full Senate vote. There are thieves who have displayed more honor than the majority leader has on this issue.

As for Leahy, he is becoming infamous for ignoring his own stated standards for judicial nominations. Leahy has said American Bar Association ratings are “the Gold Standard by which judicial candidates are judged,” but now he is denying committee votes to nominees unanimously given the ABA’s highest rating. He has said repeatedly that the most consideration is owed to nominees supported by both senators of the nominees’ home states, but he is denying committee consideration to two such nominees right now. One of them has waited more than 300 days. Leahy has said all judicial nominees deserve up or down votes, and that filibusters of judicial nominees were “improper.” Since saying that, however, he has helped lead multiple filibusters and is denying some nominees even a committee hearing, much less a vote. Other examples of Leahy’s self-contradictions abound — contradictions which, if displayed by a Bush judicial nominee, would certainly be grounds enough for Leahy himself to vote the nomination down.

This year, the Senate has confirmed only two appeals court nominees....
For nearly eight years Democrats have exhibited bad faith on a global scale when it comes to judges whether they were in the majority or not. They will only get worse over the next few months as they seek to save positions for liberals judges to be appointed by a President Obama. When it comes to judges never expect Leahy or Reid to act with any sense of decency or fairness.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more