Filibuster -- GOP flip-flop

[Crabtownboy]

There should be no surprise in this. Politics as usual. :laugh: And when they gain control again the GOP will be against the evil of the filibuster.

In their quest to thwart President Obama, Republicans do not fear the hobgoblin of consistency.

For much of this decade, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, now the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, led the fight against Democratic filibusters of George W. Bush's judicial nominees. He decried Democrats' "unprecedented, obstructive tactics." To have Bush nominees "opposed on a partisan filibuster, it is really wrong," he added. He demanded they get "an up-and-down vote." He praised Republican leaders because they "opposed judicial filibusters" and have "been consistent on this issue even when it was not to their political benefit to do so."

So now a Democratic president is in the White House and he has nominated his first appellate judicial nominee, U.S. District Judge David Hamilton. And what did Sessions do? He went to the floor and led a filibuster.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy.../11/17/AR2009111703401.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

 

[preachinjesus]

What bothers me about this is we heard height nor hair about the judicial hold ups from mainstream media outlets during the last eight years and now this is a big deal.

I could honestly care less. If we expect anything from Republicans and Democrats it should be that they will both lie to us equally and both don't have a care in the world for accomplishing something good for the American people without incentive.

Democrats don't like it than they can just pick up the Congressional Record for the past eight years and see how they did the exact same thing. Turnabout is fair play.

I was listening to NPR the other day and they spent considerable time (maybe 5 to 10 minutes) talking about this exact issue. I honestly can't remember them saying much at all about judicial confirmation hold ups during the Bush years. It seem quite ridiculous at this point.

 

[rbell]

of course, ctb ignores why there's a filibuster:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hamilton issued a series of rulings over seven years that prevented Indiana from implementing its informed consent law that would give women information about abortion's risks and alternatives.[/FONT]

In fact, the 7th Circuit Court, which overturned Hamilton's rulings and to which Obama has appointed him, issued a statement chiding him for holding up the law.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"For seven years Indiana has been prevented from enforcing a statute materially identical to a law held valid by the Supreme Court in Casey, by this court in Karlin, and by the fifth circuit in Barnes," the appeals judges wrote in their decision.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"No court anywhere in the country (other than one district judge in Indiana [i.e., Hamilton]) has held any similar law invalid in the years since Casey," they added. "t is an abuse of discretion for a district judge to issue a pre-enforcement injunction while the effects of the law (and reasons for those effects) are open to debate."[/FONT]

SOURCE

Of couse, since when did CTB begin to care about the victims of abortion?[/FONT]

 

[saturneptune]

What bothers me about this is we heard height nor hair about the judicial hold ups from mainstream media outlets during the last eight years and now this is a big deal.

I could honestly care less. If we expect anything from Republicans and Democrats it should be that they will both lie to us equally and both don't have a care in the world for accomplishing something good for the American people without incentive.

Democrats don't like it than they can just pick up the Congressional Record for the past eight years and see how they did the exact same thing. Turnabout is fair play.

I was listening to NPR the other day and they spent considerable time (maybe 5 to 10 minutes) talking about this exact issue. I honestly can't remember them saying much at all about judicial confirmation hold ups during the Bush years. It seem quite ridiculous at this point.

Excellent post. Both parties are worthless. Nothing will be solved by reelecting the Republicans because the Democrats are failing. Threads like this that create a false divide between the two parties only encourages the same, old failed policies the Democrats have been swapping back and forth for decades. People who create threads like this are part of the problem, not the solution, which is to elect people outside the two parties that wants to run our country by the Constitution.

 

[Robert Snow]

Excellent post. Both parties are worthless. Nothing will be solved by reelecting the Republicans because the Democrats are failing. Threads like this that create a false divide between the two parties only encourages the same, old failed policies the Democrats have been swapping back and forth for decades. People who create threads like this are part of the problem, not the solution, which is to elect people outside the two parties that wants to run our country by the Constitution.

I am not saying you are wrong, but do you really think we will see a third party in power any time soon?

 

[carpro]

David Hamilton is a wild eyed liberal moonbat judicial activist who neither knows the law nor how to apply it.

And doesn't care. He just makes it up as he goes along. He is the laughing stock of all serious jurists.

The record on this clown:

His political background involves fundraising for ACORN and serving as vice president for litigation and a board member for Indiana’s ACLU branch. His rulings as a district judge reveal an inability to part with the extreme political leanings that are characteristic of these two organizations.

For example, the very court to which Hamilton is nominated overturned a series of his rulings that blocked enforcement of an Indiana law requiring informed consent for abortions. The language in the 7th Circuit’s majority’s opinion laments Hamilton’s blithe disregard for the rule of law: “No court anywhere in the country (other than one district judge in Indiana) has held any similar law invalid in the years since Casey.” That “one district judge in Indiana” refers to Hamilton himself.

snip

In 2007, the appeals court overturned a case in which Hamilton ruled that it was a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause for the Indiana House of Representatives to invoke the name of Jesus Christ during prayer, yet it does not violate the Constitution to invoke the name of Allah.

SNIP

Hamilton has displayed a tendency to be soft on crime. In fact, lawyers reported in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary that Hamilton is one of the most lenient judges in his district in criminal cases. A prime example of this is a 2007 case in which Hamilton requested clemency for a 32-year old police officer who pled guilty to two counts of producing child pornography after videotaping his “consensual” sexual activities with two teenagers.