Free Republic

July 05, 2005, Sinister Strategies The Left's plan to block judicial nominees. All weekend we heard from the likes of Ralph Neas (People for the American Way), Nan Aron (Alliance for Justice), and other leaders of a left-wing coalition insisting that President Bush nominate a "mainstream conservative" to the Supreme Court, or that he unite the nation with a "pragmatist" or "moderate" in the character of Sandra Day O'Connor. This is real chutzpah. These are the same people and groups that have conspired to undermine President Bush's judicial appointments for over four years, and now seek to derail any nominee...

...Justice O'Connor is being hailed as the Court's "swing" Justice, but her legacy is more complicated. She has been a conservative on property rights and federalism, most recently in her Kelo dissent, where she took vigorous issue with the Court's extension of government's eminent domain power to include the taking of private property for private economic development. Replacing her with a "moderate" could actually mean a more liberal court on those issues. Where she drifted left over the years--and where her written opinions often sowed confusion--was on social issues, notably church-state and racial matters. She focused more on the facts...

Laury Gordon Estrada ESTRADA, LAURY GORDON Of Alexandria, VA, passed away unexpectedly on November 28, 2004. She was 46. She is survived by her loving mother, Ruby Gordon; and her devoted husband, Miguel Estrada. She also leaves behind her three loving dogs, Zeus, Ruby and Jackson and her chestnut mare, Lily, all of whom she loved deeply. Laury worked for many years as an Attorney in various positions in the Department of Justice, including the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering section, the Office of Legislative Affairs and the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. She was...

Comments by SENATOR CLINTON, 25 February 2003, on Senate Floor Opposing the Confirmation of MIGUEL ESTRADA to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Mrs. CLINTON. I thank the Chair. Madam President, I have been, as I said, listening with great interest to the debate on this issue. It is a very significant and important debate. As I often do when I come to the Chamber, I imagine, instead of being a Senator with the great honor of representing the State of New York and speaking in this Chamber, that I am just another citizen, as I have been most of...

Miguel Estrada: U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Date: June 11, 2001 · From the Free Congress Foundation’s Judicial Selection Monitoring Project Background: On May 9, 2001, President Bush nominated Miguel Estrada to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit. Miguel Estrada is a native of Honduras who immigrated to the United States at age 151. Two years later, Mr. Estrada took the SAT2 in English and was accepted to Columbia College, from which he graduated magna cum laude. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1986 and once again graduated magna cum...

...The huge voter turnout of some 120 million -- the largest as a share of the electorate since 1968 -- adds to the mandate because it means the country was fully engaged in this national debate. No one can say he didn't know what was at stake. The President's opposition went all-in, as they say in poker, with the most relentlessly partisan performance by elite cultural institutions that we've ever witnessed. Hollywood, CBS, and the New York Times threw everything they had at Mr. Bush, and the country rejected their values and agenda, not his. We trust that the President...

From article: . " As political scandals go, the case of the U.S. Senate Democrat memos is differcult to assess throughly, for the moment. The evidence is currently under lock and key by the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms. . That evidence consists of some three to four THOUSAND MEMOS from or to DEMOCRAT MEMBERS of the SENATE JUDICIARY Committee, believed to DETAIL COLLUSION between Democrats and LEFTIST GROUPS to BLOCK confirmation of many of President Bush's judicial Nomonees." see in article: @ Miguel Estrada @ Racist remarks in memos concerning Mr. Estrada's " Latino " backround " , made by a "minority...

With three weeks to Election Day, it is time for Republicans to close the deal with swing voters -- independents, Southern and Midwestern moderates, blue-collar households, Catholics, and Hispanics. The tactics of Senate Democrats and their liberal allies are now so nakedly partisan that the judiciary could well become the issue that wins tight Senate races and presidential battleground states for the GOP. (A secondary benefit of campaigning on this issue is that it establishes a clear "judiciary mandate" -- an advantage when addressing the Senate's rule for filibusters and a bonus when the time comes to nominate a Supreme...

To adequately follow along, I suggest several sheets of paper (for the flow charts) and a heavy dose of Tylenol (so your head won’t explode). Go back with me in time – just to last summer – those idyllic days when the stench of political tomfoolery had not yet overwhelmed our senses and triggered our gag reflexes. Then the so-called “intelligence memos” appeared on the radio talk show scene. A memorandum written by a Democrat Senate Intelligence Committee staffer detailed a strategy to painstakingly undermine the President’s policies in Iraq and the War on Terror. National security be damned, so...

Hatch fires back at his conservative critics By Alexander Bolton Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is firing back at conservative critics on and off the Hill who have lambasted him for not moving more judicial nominees out of his committee. The rift stems from Hatch’s handling of a Senate sergeant at arms investigation into the unauthorized access of close to 5,000 internal Democratic Judiciary Committee documents from committee computers. Hatch approved the investigation, which resulted in the resignation of Manuel Miranda, who organized the GOP strategy on judges when he served as an aide...

Khrushchev's children fulfilling his prophesy Posted: March 23, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Liberal elites talk a good game when it comes to racism, inclusion and diversity – as long the minority is pro-abortion, pro-immorality, program dependent and blames white males and the rich for all ills. I do not consider myself a minority. I consider myself an American. There being some 250-plus million Americans – that hardly makes me a minority. Having said that, I am incensed that elite social racist liberals would – with the Machiavellian treachery of their icon Tom Lynch – attempt to destroy the careers and...

FORT WORTH - They wore black suits, flashed federal badges and identified themselves as an FBI agent and a federal attorney. But police say the man and woman who walked into a south side car lot and repair shop Tuesday, announcing that they were conducting a federal investigation, were phonies, right down to the names on their fake identification cards. "I checked with the FBI and there is no FBI agent Erik Estrada nor is there a federal attorney Julia Stiles," joked robbery Sgt. Kevin Morton. "It looked like they just pulled actors' names." Estrada is perhaps best known for...

Frist aide says feds may have Durbin in crosshairs Due to pressure following his release of condemning memos about Circuit Court nominee Miguel Estrada, written by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin's Judiciary Committee staff, Manuel Miranda resigned his post Friday on U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's staff. WASHINGTON DC -- U.S. Senate staffer Manuel Miranda, who resigned Friday under pressure after U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) launched an investigation into the source of the leak of condemning memos written by his staffers, revealed today Durbin himself may be under investigation for leaking classfied information. Last autumn, memos written by Democrat...

Malacañang will help deposed President Joseph Estrada secure a United States visa to allow him to undergo knee surgery in California, a ranking Palace official said yesterday. Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) Secretary Michael Defensor told The STAR he personally called up Estrada to assure him of assistance in securing a US visa. "I told him, ‘Mr. President, if you have any visa problems with the US Embassy (in Manila), please let us know and we will give you a line to them’," Defensor said. Malacañang made the offer after the Sandiganbayan on Tuesday allowed the former leader...

WASHINGTON - Since it has clearly abandoned all objectivity, perhaps the Globe-News should change its name to the "The Amarillo Rubber Stamp." I was disgusted by your despicable Sept. 16 piece of partisan filth decrying the "shameful" treatment of Bush nominee Miguel Estrada at the hands of the Senate Democrats, accusing them of filibustering the Estrada nomination because they are still angry about the Supreme Court handing the presidency to George Bush in 2000. Like the Rubber Stamp, the Republicans in the Senate have never met a Bush nominee they didn't like, no matter how far out of the mainstream...

Black Network Files Complaint Against NAACP Attorney Unethical Influence in Shaping Constitutional Cases Charged For Release: December 4, 2003 Contact: David Almasi at 202/371-1400 x106 The African-American leadership network Project 21 is asking the Virginia State Bar to investigate NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc president and director-counsel Elaine R. Jones. "Obstructionism is the order of the day in the Senate," said Project 21 member Gregory Parker of New Braunfels, Texas. "Now we know that this judicial obstructionism is part of a carefully orchestrated plan by a few senators and left-wing special interest groups." The complaint, to be filed...

The Democratic filibuster against President Bush's judicial nominees continues. With the United States population sound asleep, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) begins to read from Robert A. Caro's "Master of the Senate," a biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson. "It's 1,040 pages," he announces. "I assure you, I'm not going to read all thousand pages." By Friday morning, the debate was over. Democrats had won. Republicans had been unable to reach cloture. The Democratic filibusters against Charles Pickering, William H. Pryor Jr., Priscilla Owen, Miguel Estrada, Carolyn Kuhl and Janice Rogers Brown continued. President Bush's nominees remained stuck in the Senate. Senate...

<p>Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have worked in close concert with outside special-interest groups to defeat President Bush's judicial nominees, according to internal Democratic staff memos.</p> <p>In one memo to Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois obtained by The Washington Times, Washington lawyer Miguel A. Estrada is singled out as "especially dangerous" because "he is Latino." Mr. Estrada, born in Honduras, withdrew his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in September after being filibustered for eight months.</p>

Mark Jimenez gets 2 years for election fraud A U.S. federal court sentenced Thursday (Friday in Manila) ousted Manila congressman Mark Jimenez to more than two years in jail for federal election fraud. Jimenez was sentenced to 2 1/4 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.2 million restitution on his guilty plea to election conspiracy and tax evasion charges. He handed over a check for the first $400,000. The court ruled that Jimenez contributed illegally to the campaigns of then-president Clinton and other Democrats, including then-senator Robert Torricelli of New Jersey. He also became a confidante of...

This morning, we know for sure: the Senate Republicans are serious about President Bush’s judicial nominees. There had been some question. Up until 6 PM last night, all the Majority Leader Bill Frist and his staff had to offer was talk. We heard from the Senator’s senior advisor that Frist had an “itchy trigger finger” to get something done about the nominees being filibustered by his Democrat colleagues. Months ago, they told us to “get ready for hardball.” Even before that, it was “Anything is possible, nothing is off the table.” And so when Frist’s staff told us last week,...