Tag: judicial nominees
If They Win Republicans Promise To Block Biden, Promote Lies, And Defund NPR

If They Win Republicans Promise To Block Biden, Promote Lies, And Defund NPR

The 2022 midterm elections are nearly a year away, but GOP leaders are already talking up what they plan to do should they win back majorities in the House of Representatives and the US Senate.

The Republicans' plan, should they win, seems to consist of three things: obstructing President Joe Biden's agenda, punishing their enemies, and consolidating power.

Since Biden was sworn into office in January, Republicans have done everything possible to block Democrats from enacting the agenda Americans voted for in November 2020.

In the House, the GOP has wasted hours by forcing lengthy roll-call votes on procedural motions to adjourn in the middle of the day. In the Senate, Republicans have filibustered many of the Biden's top legislative priorities, stalled nominees, and even forced staffers to read an entire bill aloud for hours on end just to delay its enactment.

But should Republicans gain five seats in the House or one seat in the Senate, they will be able to wield even more power to further their agenda.

When Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was Senate Majority Leader, he prevented former President Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court vacancy for nearly all of 2016. He then spent 2019 and 2020 blocking hundreds of progressive bills from even getting a vote.

Now, McConnell is signaling that if he gets the job back, Biden should expect more of the same.

In June, McConnell warned that if a Supreme Court seat opens up in 2024 and he has a majority, he will once again prevent a Democratic president from filling it. And he recently suggested he would do nothing to avoid a catastrophic debt default, as punishment for Democrats enacting Biden's jobs bills.

"I will not be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement," McConnell said.

House Republican leaders have indicated they would enact a similar agenda of retribution if they regain control of Congress. At the center of their plans is Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who hopes to strip Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of her Speaker of the House title.

Recently, McCarthy has fought efforts to strip Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) of their committee assignments over their inappropriate conduct. Greene has repeatedly made racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic comments. She has also refused to wear a mask on the House floor despite being unvaccinated.

Last week, House Democrats voted to censure Gosar after he tweeted an animated video showing him attacking Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Just two Republican House members joined with Democrats to censure Gosar: Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).

McCarthy pledged to restore both Greene's and Gosar's committee posts if Republicans win back the House. "They'll have committees," he told reporters last Thursday. "They may have other committee assignments. They may have better committee assignments."

And in his eight-and-a-half-hour-long filibuster speech last Thursday night and Friday morning, McCarthy warned that he would abolish a temporary rule allowing members to work remotely and cast their votes via proxy.

"I have spent a lot of time thinking about the next Congress," he said. "If you are all thinking of running again, for those who win, no more proxy voting. You are going to have to show up to work."

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has also outlined plans to go after her rivals if she gets the chance. Stefanik has been an outspoken critic of tech companies, accusing them of censoring and "canceling" conservatives by enforcing their terms of service against Trump and others.

Last month, Stefanik tweeted that she would fight to stop social media companies from regulating what content users can post, like misinformation and offensive content. "2022 is pivotal - we need to take back the House so that we can END big tech censorship!" she wrote.

Stefanik has also pushed to defund National Public Radio for alleged political bias and has called for investigations and a shutdown of the entire NPR network.

"What #NY21 listeners always knew - @ncpr is a taxpayer-funded front for local Socialist Democrats," she claimed, referring to North Country Public Radio in northern New York. "The entire @ncpr operation must be audited. When Republicans win the majority in 2022, they will be. DEFUND @NPR."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Mitch McConnell

McConnell Vows To Continue Court Packing Even If Republicans Lose

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Instead of focusing on a viable stimulus plan to help the American people and the country's flailing small businesses, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is focused on doing the one thing he and his Republican colleagues said Democrats would do: pack the courts.

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Danziger: Judge Not

Danziger: Judge Not

Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.com.

Obama Faces Liberal Anger Over Judicial Nominees

Obama Faces Liberal Anger Over Judicial Nominees

By Timothy M. Phelps, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is facing a liberal revolt in the Senate over two high-priority judicial nominations, potentially jeopardizing its push to shape the federal judiciary in advance of the midterm congressional election.

The disputes, which involve hot-button issues including abortion, the Confederate flag and drones, could come to a head as early as Tuesday.

On one side, the White House is standing behind deals with Republican senators that were designed to allow several nominations to move forward. On the other side are some liberal groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and NARAL Pro-Choice America, which find themselves for the first time in open conflict with the Obama administration over its choices for the federal bench.

The fights highlight an ongoing problem for Obama’s nominees: Even though Democrats changed Senate rules to eliminate filibusters of judicial nominees other than Supreme Court justices, senators have other ways to stall action. That gives Republicans continued leverage, particularly now because administration officials know their party could lose control of the Senate in the November election and are anxious to gain approval of their picks while they still have a majority.

Two nominees expected to come up in the Senate on Tuesday are the particular focus of liberal ire, but the revolt could endanger half a dozen other nominees.

Liberals are incensed that the administration is pushing hard for Michael Boggs, a judge on Georgia’s state Court of Appeals, to join the federal bench in Georgia. Boggs, a conservative Democrat, voted while in the state Legislature to reinstate a version of the Confederate flag as the state flag, opposed same-sex marriage and took positions on abortion that critics say would have limited women’s rights.

His nomination “will go down in history as one of the worst acts of this president,” said Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., a centrist African-American who represents Atlanta suburbs.

Obama “should have had the guts to say, ‘You think I can do this to my own black people, nominate a man who would keep the vicious symbol of segregation and white supremacy?’ ” Scott said.

Women’s groups are also upset, saying that legislation Boggs sponsored would have required parents to attend their teenagers’ abortions and that he supported legislation to define children as “both born and unborn.”

As that fight plays out, prominent senators from both parties, backed by the ACLU, are trying to block, or at least delay, a vote on Harvard law professor David Barron. Obama has nominated Barron to be a judge on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from New England.

As a Justice Department lawyer, Barron wrote at least one memo that provided the legal justification for the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was slain by a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

The fight over Barron has made complicated alliances. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Democratic Sens. Mark Udall of Colorado and Ron Wyden of Oregon have joined the ACLU in saying all of Barron’s memos on drones must be made public or at least made available to senators before any vote.

The White House offered last week to make one memo available to senators, a move that did not satisfy critics.

“They’ve played one big game of ‘hide the ball,’ ” said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel at the ACLU. “We want to see all the memos he’s involved in writing.”

At the same time, a coalition of civil rights groups on Friday supported Barron, a former Supreme Court law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens, who is well known as a liberal legal scholar. Barron has gained opponents among conservatives for publicly criticizing some decisions by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

The White House is seeking to defend both of its nominees.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Barron “will bring outstanding credentials, legal expertise and dedication to the rule of law to the federal bench. The administration is working to ensure that any remaining questions members of the Senate have about Barron’s legal work at the Department of Justice are addressed.”

As for Boggs, officials say that as a judge, he has vigorously supported sentencing reform, a signature issue for Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

Boggs, however, was not the administration’s first choice for the federal bench.

For years Georgia’s two Republican senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, have blocked Obama’s judicial nominees from that state. Although the filibuster is no more, the two senators have been able to maintain their veto because of a procedure, called a “blue slip,” adopted by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Under the blue slip rule, both senators from a nominee’s state must give approval before a nomination can get a hearing.

Last year, Chambliss and Isakson made a deal with the White House to approve two nominees to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Georgia and several other Southern states, as well as three other district court nominees, in return for nominating Boggs.

“The blue slip rule for judicial nominees has been more problematic than the filibuster because it can act as a silent, unaccountable veto,” Schultz said. “But given this constraint, our choice is clear: Do we work with Republican senators to find a compromise or should we leave the seats vacant?”

The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider Boggs and other Georgia nominees Tuesday. Leahy is stepping aside to allow Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., an outspoken critic of Boggs, to lead the hearing. And the room will be packed with opponents from women’s groups, gay rights groups and civil rights groups.