Democrats accused of racism on Bush nominees

Critics cite Kennedy 'Neanderthal' remark, memo nixing Estrada because 'he is Latino'

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While establishment civil-rights leaders in the U.S. have been silent on Sen. Edward Kennedy calling President Bush's minority judicial nominees "Neanderthals," one prominent black author is portraying the senator's comment as "racism in its highest form."

"Had a Republican made those types of remarks about a Democrat, especially a black or Hispanic, the so-called NAACP, the black caucus, Jesse Jackson, the others, would be burning down America," said the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, head of Los Angeles-based BOND, Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, whose purpose is "rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man."

Kennedy's remarks came at the end of a marathon Senate session last week engineered by Republicans to force a vote on nominees blocked by Democrats who claim Bush's selections are unfit for the federal bench.

The Massachusetts Democrat said "what has not ended is the resolution and the determination of the members of the United States Senate to continue to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president of the United States for any federal court in the United States."

Two of the four judges held back by Democrats are minorities, California Supreme Court Judge Janice Rogers Brown and Miguel Estrada. Brown was nominated in July to the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, from which many nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court have come. After two years of opposition, Estrada finally gave up fighting for his nomination to the D.C. court on Sept. 5.

"Mr. Estrada received disgraceful treatment at the hands of 45 U.S. Senators during the more than two years his nomination was pending," President Bush said of the end of the Estrada battle. "Despite his superb qualifications and the wide bipartisan support for his nomination, these Democrat senators repeatedly blocked an up-or-down vote that would have led to Mr. Estrada's confirmation. The treatment of this fine man is an unfortunate chapter in the Senate's history."

"The lives of Janice Rogers Brown and Miguel Estrada capture everything America is about," she told WND. "From the founding of this country, it's been about preserving and defending freedom."

The other blocked nominees are Priscilla Owen, Charles Pickering and Carolyn Kuhl.

Peterson said Kennedy's remarks and the lack of response "shows the race issue is not as important to these so-called civil rights leaders as they pretend it is when Republicans or conservatives are concerned."

"They pretend that they want equality for black Americans," he said. "They pretend that racism is holding them back, but when blacks are moving forward, as [Brown] is doing – a qualified woman, a good example for all people, especially black Americans – they are doing all they can to hold her back, because her views or principles don't coincide with theirs."

"It's a character issue," he said. "We're having a spiritual battle between good and evil, right and wrong. And Justice Brown and these other justices are on the side of good, and the Black Caucus, the Kennedys, the liberal Democrats, are on the side of evil. They are going after people based on that and not color."

Peterson's new book "Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America,", published by WND Books, contends establishment black leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are con artists, gaining money and power by promoting racial tension and class warfare.

He thinks Brown, along with all black Americans, deserves an apology from Kennedy.

"This is racism in its highest form," he said. "This woman has managed to succeed in the greatest country in the world against all opposition."

Peterson said his group contacted Kennedy's office but just "got the run-around."

Kennedy's press secretary, Jim Manley, did not return WND's call seeking comment.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published secret staff memos to Kennedy and Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin revealing a scheme to block Bush nominations.

One memo described Miguel Estrada as "especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment."

A Nov. 1, 2001, memo informs Sen. Durbin of meetings he will have with leaders of left-leaning interest groups who will identify "the most controversial and/or vulnerable judicial nominees."

"The groups would like to postpone action on these nominees until next year, when (presumably) the public will be more tolerant of partisan dissent," the memo said.

Those groups, according to the document, were likely to include Ralph Neas of People For the American Way, Kate Michelman of NARAL, Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice, Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Leslie Proll of the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Nancy Zirkin of the American Association of University Women, Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center and Judy Lichtman of National Partnership.

More proof racism is still not a two way street...only Republicans can be racists when they make stupid statments but not Democrats.

So screw the left wing media that won't cover the leaked memos, there are more outlets that will and are growing and gathering more listeners, readers, etc.

The monopoly of Democratic control over the media, like their control over government, is crumbling and becoming the minority of opinion. Sooner or later, someone like the NYTimes or WashPost will break ranks and call a spade a spade due only to economic reasons - sales.

They'll have to get more fair or go out of business since the number of left wing radicals that actually buy newspapers will continue to decline. Already, the ABCCBSNBC nightly news programs that consist of 22 minutes of pure propaganda are dying.

But the most satisfying defeat will be at the polls as more and more braindead idiots wake up from their pods and see they Dems couldn't care less about them and are nothing but conservative haters.

And that's what it truly is, nothing but total hatred and desire to eliminate conservatives from the process. Can conservatives get a Supreme Court like Massachusetts to guarantee their rights under the constitution like gays?

I can see it now! If Gay Marriage alleviates the second-class citizen status of many people, can conservative freedom be far behind? Harvard is like a gulag when it comes to conservatives.

I doubt the far left will allow conservatives to become equal under the law.

Affirmative-action case rigged?
Memos urge Sen. Kennedy to slow judicial confirmation to affect ruling

Posted: November 18, 2003
6:29 p.m. Eastern

Newly discovered internal Democratic staff memos raise the question of whether one of the most significant rulings on affirmative action in a quarter-century was rigged.

According to the memos obtained by the Washington Times, staffers for Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, who is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sought to delay one of President Bush's nominees to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals specifically to affect the outcome of the then-pending affirmative-action case involving admissions at the University of Michigan.

Three white students filed a reverse discrimination case against the university's law school where some minority students are admitted to meet percentage targets, while other applicants with higher grades and better scores get passed over. Under the school's affirmative-action program, African American, some Hispanic students and Native American students applying for admission receive 20 points out of a maximum 150, soley based on race. In comparison, applicants earning perfect scores on standardized tests such as the SAT get only 12 points.

"The thinking is that the current 6th Circuit will sustain the affirmative action program, but if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able, under 6th Circuit rules, to review the case and vote on it," staffers wrote in an April 17, 2002, memo to Kennedy advising him to slow the confirmation process for Tennessee Judge Julia S. Gibbons, reports the Washington Times.

If Kennedy followed the advice, it appears he was successful. The court ruled 5-4 to uphold the university's admissions program at the law school.

Gibbons was confirmed weeks later, despite having been nominated eight months earlier.

"The case was fixed," Tom Fitton, president of the legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, told the Times, upon learning about the memos. "It ought to be examined by the Ethics Committee."

Last July, the United States Supreme Court upheld the court's decision but restricted the affirmative-action plan to the law school, eliminating preferences in undergraduate admissions.

A relieved University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman insisted "racial diversity" was important for classroom discussion and argued that doing away with their system would have meant "turning back the clock on civil rights." Writing in the majority opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor forecast such preferences would likely be unnecessary in 25 years, but they're needed now.

The contentious 5-4 ruling sparked nationwide debate over affirmative action. President Bush even waded into the controversy, slamming the use of "quotas."

"At their core, the Michigan policies amount to a quota system that unfairly rewards or penalizes prospective students based solely on their race," Bush said. "Our Constitution makes it clear that people of all races must be treated equally under the law."

The revelation of the memos deepens suspicions over the pivotal appeals-court ruling that paved the way for the justices to weigh in on the hot-button issue. The Times reports then-6th Circuit Chief Judge Boyce Martin has been accused of judicial misconduct for manipulating the makeup of the panel that heard the case. The allegations arose in the dissenting opinion written for the ruling. Judge Danny Boggs said Martin violated court rules by naming himself to the panel hearing the case.

"Under this court's rules, these cases generally would have been assigned to a panel chosen at random," Boggs wrote in his May 2002 dissent. "This was not done."

Other evidence suggested Martin – who was appointed to the bench in 1979 by President Carter – further stacked the deck by postponing the affirmative-action case until two Republican-appointed judges had retired from active duty.

According to the Times, Fitton questions whether there were communications between Kennedy staffers and Martin.

"It raises questions about whether Kennedy's staffers were in cahoots with Judge Martin," the paper quotes Fitton as saying. "This brings the misconduct case back to the Senate in terms of investigative leads."

Six other internal memos leaked to the Times were written by staffers to Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois.

One was written following a meeting with liberal special-interest groups convened to discuss which Bush nominees should be blocked.

"They also identified Miguel Estrada (D.C. Circuit) as especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment," the staffer wrote, referring to the Washington lawyer nominated by Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Estrada withdrew his nomination after being filibustered for eight months.

Durbin has called for an investigation into how the documents were released, according to the Times.

The revelation of possible Democratic political shenanigans underlying the confirmation of Judge Gibbons follows the showdown over three other Bush judicial nominees in the Senate last week. Republicans staged an unsuccessful 39-hour talkathon to counter Democratic filibusters and force a vote on the nominations of Texas judge Priscilla Owen and California judges Carolyn Kuhl and Janice Rogers Brown.

Following the conclusion of the round-the-clock debate, Republicans and Democrats traded barbs over the tactic of blocking nominees. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., accused Democrats of using Senate rules "in an unconstitutional manner" because all three nominees were approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee and had enough bipartisan support to get the simple majority in a full-Senate vote needed to be confirmed.

Democrats countered this was just business as usual and argued Republicans had blocked far more of President Clinton's judicial nominations.

During a post-debate press conference, Kennedy referenced Bush's outstanding judicial nominees as "right-wing turkeys" and "Neanderthals."

He told reporters the Republicans' efforts to highlight Democrat obstructionism failed and said Democrats would "continue to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president."

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