Posted on 02/18/2016 11:08:40 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
On a hot day in June, the grandson of a bank president took to the floor of the Senate to denounce the daughter of sharecroppers. "I feel compelled to rise on this issue to express, in the strongest terms, my opposition to the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the DC Circuit," Senator Obama said.
Born in segregated Alabama, Janice Rogers Brown had been a leftist like Obama before becoming conservative. When Obama rose to denounce the respected African-American jurist for her political views it had been almost a full two years since President Bush had nominated her in the summer of '03.
Obama had arrived a few months earlier on his way to the White House and was eager to impress his left-wing backers with his political radicalism. He held forth complaining that Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who had gone to segregated schools and become the first African-American woman on the California Supreme Court, was guilty of "an unyielding belief in an unfettered free market."
And he filibustered Judge Brown, along with other nominee, trying to deny them a vote.
"She has equated altruism with communism. She equates even the most modest efforts to level life's playing field with somehow inhibiting our liberty," he fumed.
Brown, who due to her family background knew far more of slavery than Obama, had indeed warned about the dangers of a powerful government. "In the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery. And we no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it. We demand more. Big government is not just the opiate of the masses. It is the opiate -- the drug of choice -- for multinational corporations and single moms, for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers and militant senior citizens."
Obama viewed her opposition to "our very own 'Socialist revolution'" as disqualifying. Ideology was the only judicial test that ever mattered to him. Not scholarship. Not qualification. Not ability. He plots to force another radical nominee in place of the deceased Justice Scalia whom he had said would not have been nominated despite his "intellectual brilliance" because "he and I just disagree."
When filibustering Justice Alito, Obama rejected the idea that the Senate should approve a judge just because he might be "intellectually capable and an all-around nice guy." The key test was "ideology." Justice Alito was an "an intelligent man and an accomplished jurist" who had the "the training and qualifications necessary to serve," but he was from the wrong side of the political tracks.
And Obama put party over country and radical ideology over party.
He "profoundly" disagreed with Justice Clarence Thomas. He conceded that Justice Roberts "is qualified to sit on the highest court in the land" and that "he is humble, he is personally decent, and he appears to be respectful of different points of view," but he voted against him because he has the wrong "political philosophy."
It was all about politics. It was always about politics for Obama.
Democrats and their media allies demand a prompt and immediate "up and down vote" on his nominee.
But when Obama voted against Judge Priscilla Owen, despite her highest rating, Democrats had blocked her nomination for four years. That's an entire presidential term. Owen was nominated by Bush in his first year in office. Despite being a moderate, Owen only got a full Senate vote during Bush's second term. Obama had fought to filibuster her even though Owen was generally considered a moderate.
Obama filibustered Judge William Pryor, who had replaced Judge William Steele, who had never even gotten a hearing as part of a process that also took four years from first nomination to confirmation.
Bush had nominated Judge Pickering in '01 and he was blocked in committee, falsely smeared as a racist and then filibustered by Senate Democrats to deny him the "up and down vote" that they are now busy clamoring for. After three years, Pickering gave up and was replaced by Wallace, who was also blocked by Senate Democrats for a year and denied a vote. Six years later, Bush was still trying with Judge Southwick who had served in Iraq. He was also denied an "up and down" vote until the end of 2007.
Senator Obama fought Judge Southwick's nomination insisting on the need for a "consensus candidate" and claimed that his nomination would "threaten the very basis of our freedom and democracy."
And only Obama was supposed to be allowed to do that.
By the time Senate Democrats finally approved a Bush nominee, a presidential term and a half had passed. Those numbers should put any of the current rhetoric about a "prompt process" and the right to an "up and down vote" to rest. If failing to move forward with a judicial nomination is a violation of the Constitution, then Obama and his political party were in violation of it under President Bush.
If it isn't, then they are shameless liars who will say anything to get their way.
Senate Democrats have not only denied an "up and down vote" on Republican nominees for entire presidential terms, they have smeared them and destroyed their lives and even taken lives.
Judge Miguel Estrada's nomination was blocked for years because, according to a memo from Senator Durbin's office, he was "Latino," in an ugly campaign that helped lead to the suicide of his wife. These are the rules by which the Democratic Party had played when the shoe was on the other foot.
And let's not forget it.
Obama's approach on both sides of the table was purely partisan. He now speaks about the importance of avoiding partisanship in judicial nominations, but his history of rhetoric and deeds tells another story.
The man in the White House is entitled to nominate only those judges he agrees with. But the Senate is equally entitled to approve them based on the same criteria. In the Senate, Obama approved judges based on partisan criteria. In the White House, he nominates judges based on partisan criteria.
Both of these behaviors are symptoms of his political extremism and inability to compromise. But even more troubling, his argument that Republican presidents and senators may not act the way that he did represents yet another fundamental breakdown of political equality under the rule of law.
Obama not only seeks to break the laws of the land, to make his own laws and then to demand that everyone abide by them, but he also wants a double standard in which these unique powers that he has claimed will be exclusive to his political movement. That goes beyond putting party ahead of country. It is the wholesale replacement of country with party and party with totalitarian ideology.
When he fought conservative judges based purely on ideology, Obama put party ahead of country. His judicial nominees were unqualified radicals who were manifestly hostile to the Constitution and put party ahead of country on the Supreme Court. Now Obama pleads with Republicans to put country ahead of party even while he schemes to once again find a way to put party ahead of country.
Obama has illegally seized drastic amounts of power as part of putting party over country. And it would be deeply damaging to the rule of law if he were allowed to place yet another radical nominee who shares his preference for party over country on a Supreme Court divided between party and country.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, those senile senators Grassly, Hatch, Conyers and McConnell are planning to approve an Obama appointee to SCOTUS, defying their constituents and urinating on Scalia’s corpse, to please this Leninist monster.
Yep...
“....That $100,000 gift from Trump to the Boehner-allied super PAC was twice as big as his next-biggest contributions. [Trump’s] given $50,000 .. to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads (2010) [and $50,000 to] the pro-Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Kentuckians for Strong Leadership (2013)...
And then Trump gave McConnell’s PAC another $10,000 in Nov 2014.
Was Trump a politician back then?
No?
I didn’t think so.
Which is why he has sense enough not to accept money from super pacs. He understands how to buy influence.
Trump has talked quite a bit about that.
It’s telling to me how Trump’s fans carve out a special world for him. A world where he’s elevated and protected against any discussion or criticism for the political associations and alliances he’s had for years, yet everyone else is fair game.
Trump’s been involved in politics for a very long time - he cannot hide behind “businessman.”
But that can’t be looked at or vetted because for Trump to be what you want him to be, an “outsider” and champion against “special interests,” you must ignore those facts.
Trump is the other side of the obama coin. If trump is president, the grand experiment called the United States of America is finished, in disgrace.
Trump: ["Art of the Deal"]: The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.
I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration - and a very effective form of promotion. - Source
Envy is the great leveler of life’s playing field. It is then the spirit of poneros that fuels and empowers socialism and its’ ever-destructive, death-wishing green-eyed revolutionaries like Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Alinsky, Obama, Loretta Lynch, etc. ad nauseum.
Nailed it!
(where is Tolik, the past keeper of the Nailed It ping list?)
The article was about Obpla and the SC, there was no need to twist it into a slam Trump.
This coming from a 100% Cruz voter BTW
June 2000, David Horowitz:
".........[His supporters] see Clinton clearly as a flawed and often repellent human being. They see him as a lecher, a liar and a man who would destroy an innocent person in order to advance his own career. (This is, in fact, the climactic drama of the text). Yet through all the sordidness and lying, the personal ruthlessness and disorder, the idealistic missionaries faithfully follow and serve the leader.
They do it not because they are themselves corrupted through material rewards. The prospect of fame is not even what drives them. Think only of Harold Ickes, personally betrayed and brutally cast aside by Clinton, who nonetheless refused to turn on him, even after the betrayal. Instead, Ickes kept his own counsel and protected Clinton, biding his time and waiting for Hillary. Then joined her staff to manage her Senate campaign.
The idealistic missionaries in this true tale bite their tongues and betray their principles, rather than betray him. They do so because in Bill Clinton they see a necessary vehicle of their noble ambition and uplifting dreams. He, too, cares about social justice, about poor people and blacks (or so he makes them believe). They will serve him and lie for him and destroy for him, because he is the vessel of their hope.
Because Bill Clinton "cares," he is the vital connection to the power they need to accomplish the redemption. Because the keys to the state are within Clinton's grasp, he becomes in their eyes the only prospect for advancing the progressive cause. Therefore, they will sacrifice anything and everything-principle, friends, country-to make him succeed.
But Bill Clinton is not like those who worship him, corrupting himself and others for a higher cause. Unlike them, he betrays principles because he has none. He will even betray his country, but without the slightest need to betray it for something else-for an idea, a party, or a cause. He is a narcissist who sacrifices principle for power because his vision is so filled with himself that he cannot tell the difference.
But the idealists who serve him-the Stephanopoulos's, the Ickes's, the feminists, the progressives and Hillary Clinton-can tell the difference. Their cynicism flows from the very perception they have of right and wrong. They do it for higher ends. They do it for the progressive faith. They do it because they see themselves as having the power to redeem the world from evil. It is that terrifyingly exalted ambition that fuels their spiritual arrogance and justifies their sordid and, if necessary, criminal means.
And that is why they hate conservatives. They hate you because you are killers of their dream. Because you are defenders of a Constitution that thwarts their cause. They hate you because your "reactionary" commitment to individual rights, to a single standard and to a neutral and limited state obstructs their progressive designs. They hate you because you are believers in property and its rights as the cornerstones of prosperity and human freedom; because you do not see the market economy as a mere instrument for acquiring personal wealth and political war chests, to be overcome in the end by bureaucratic schemes.
Conservatives who think progressives are misinformed idealists will forever be blind-sided by the malice of the left-by the cynicism of those who pride themselves on principle, by the viciousness of those who champion sensitivity, by the intolerance of those who call themselves liberal, and by the ruthless disregard for the well-being of the downtrodden by those who preen themselves as social saints.".......
We’re missing the problem. Since when did “we the people” give the Supreme Court so much power?
Please take a minute and notice why I posted it.
Support for McConnell is used to discredit others’ conservatism, so why should Trump’s support for McConnell, Boehner and Rove be offensive and off limits?
WASHINGTON - Ted Cruz has long proposed, as part of his presidential campaign, ending lifetime tenure for all Supreme Court justices.
Cruz proposed a constitutional amendment last June after the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the Affordable Care Act and legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, saying the court had become a source of "judicial tyranny."
Such ideas are likely to become a prominent part of the presidential campaign now that Justice Antonin Scalia has died, leaving a vacancy on the court during an election year.
"The court's hubris and thirst for power have reached unprecedented levels," wrote Cruz in the National Review [June 26, 2015], quoting Scalia multiple times. "And that calls for meaningful action, lest Congress be guilty of acquiescing to this assault on the rule of law."
Supreme Court justices currently serve for life after they are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, in part to shield them from popular opinion and to allow the judiciary to act as a check on other branches of government.
Cruz would require justices to appear on the ballot for retention elections every eight years "beginning with the second national election after his or her appointment," he wrote. If any justice failed to win both a majority of all voters and majorities in at least 25 states, the proposal would have stripped them of their seat and barred them from future Supreme Court terms.
The proposal was criticized from both sides of the aisle for its potential to politicize the bench, including within a Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Cruz.".....
Nothing re: the issues. Really adds a dimension of diversion, redirection, etc, etc.
"Hillary Clinton broke out in a vicious coughing fit about two-thirds of the way through a speech she gave in Harlem on Tuesday.
As she struggled to get it under control, first with water and then eventually a cough drop, Clinton riffed, "Too much to say," as the crowded auditorium at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture cheered her on.
Clinton, speaking to an incredibly supportive audience in her home state, suggested that Republican opposition to President Obama's plan to appoint a Supreme Court justice to take the late Antonin Scalia's seat is predicated on the inherent racism that has made Obama the enemy for the past seven years of his administration.
"That's in keeping with what we've heard all along, isn't it? Many Republicans talk in coded, racial language about takers and losers. They demonize President Obama and encourage the ugliest impulses of the paranoid fringe. This kind of hatred and bigotry has no place in our politics or our country."....
You would think our side would have raised this issue already visibly to the media and get ahead of the pressure to fold. What does it tell us that they haven’t?
They are blackmailed.
There was A LOT of screaming about Obama’s tactics - there are so many it’s hard to recall.
More on the Court:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420409/ted-cruz-supreme-court-constitutional-amendment
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