When pointing to the infiltration of the Conservative criminal conspiracy into our political system, we've mentioned the judiciary, but never in detail until now with the posting of two articles from Buzzflash.com: "Republican Federal Judge David Sentelle: How the GOP Has Packed the Courts With Partisan Hacks" and "Ruling the US by a GOP Judicial Coup: Justice Blinded by the Right."
"None Dare Call It Treason," an essay at The Nation, later published as The Betrayal of America by lifelong Republican and ex-Charley Manson prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, has proven that the Election of 2000 was won by a judicial coup de etat by the Supreme Court Conservative Five, but the Buzzflash articles explain the strategy that has clogged up our courts with the scum of Conservative judicial hacks. From the first article by Mark Karlin:
"The hijacking of the federal judiciary by the Republican Party – through the appointment of aggressive partisan judges combined with preventing votes on nominations by Democratic presidents – is the hidden cancer on US government. The sudden nixing of recess appointments last week by a DC appellate court panel of three Republican-appointed judges (in this case Obama filling empty National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seats and appointing Richard Cordray to chair the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) during a recess to circumvent endless Republican sabotage in the Senate) is symbolic of the macro-subversion of justice through manipulation of the federal bench, including, of course the Supreme Court.
"It should be remembered, for those who have forgotten, that almost no legal scholars or analysts – conservative or liberal – thought that the Supreme Court would rule on the 2000 presidential ballot recount dispute in Florida. But Antonin Scalia, the exhaustively partisan hack who impresses people with his intellectually sounding illogical and unconstitutional blather, stopped the recount faster than you can say 'stolen election.'
"Then he went onto gather his partisan five votes to permanently halt the recount in an act of Republican hypocrisy usurping states' rights that was limited, in the opinion of the felonious five, to apply only to the one case of – in effect -- appointing George W. Bush as president.
"Enter David Sentelle, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Not only is the DC appellate court the most powerful in the land, it is essentially the pre-trial hearing ground for government cases before they reach the Supreme Court (if the Supreme Court chooses to hear an appeal).
"Last week, Sentelle headed the three-judge panel that voided the NLRB and CFPB appointments. As we know, unlike elected officials, federal judges are appointed for life (unless they are impeached by Congress, resign or die). Sentelle, ironically, was first appointed to the federal DC circuit court when Scalia was named by Reagan to the Supreme Court in 1987. Reagan had appointed Sentelle, at the urging of then North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, to the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina in 1985.
"Once Sentelle was on the DC circuit of appeals, he became the Zelig of partisan decisions. It would be a rather lengthy list to see the damage Sentelle has done to justice.
"But to revisit just a few of Sentelle's GOP water carrying rulings, we can start with his leading the overturning of the convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter as obtained by Lawrence Walsh, independent prosecutor for the Iran-Contra scandal.
"Sentelle changed the course of US history when he appointed Ken Starr to oversee the so-called Whitewater investigation of the Clintons. Robert B. Fiske, who was the original independent counsel overseeing the Whitewater charges was going to exonerate the Clintons and end the investigation. Senator Helms (who died in 2008) and fellow North Carolina Senator Lauch Faircloth met with Sentelle for lunch in 1994 and reportedly told him to in essence fire Fiske and appoint Ken Starr (a reliable hound dog to continue the GOP impeachment Jihad), which Sentelle dutifully carried out. This political action changed a nearly closed case (Whitewater) into an open-ended witch hunt to find a reason to impeach Bill Clinton.
"Sentelle changed the course of US history when he appointed Ken Starr to oversee the so-called Whitewater investigation of the Clintons. Robert B. Fiske, who was the original independent counsel overseeing the Whitewater charges was going to exonerate the Clintons and end the investigation. Senator Helms (who died in 2008) and fellow North Carolina Senator Lauch Faircloth met with Sentelle for lunch in 1994 and reportedly told him to in essence fire Fiske and appoint Ken Starr (a reliable hound dog to continue the GOP impeachment Jihad), which Sentelle dutifully carried out. This political action changed a nearly closed case (Whitewater) into an open-ended witch hunt to find a reason to impeach Bill Clinton.
"But the NLRB and CFPB recess appointment ruling is indicative of how the Republicans have placed Manchurian Candidates on the federal bench who have – and will – cause decades of politically biased ruin to a democracy based on an unbiased reading of the Constitution.
"The website AllGov.com provides details of the ruling last week.
"The calamitous impact of the strategic long-range control of the top levels of the federal bench by Republicans continues unabated.
"A January 5 Los Angeles Times article, 'Obama struggles to nominate, confirm federal judges,' notes the conundrum faced by Obama (and by other recent Democratic presidents):
"A January 5 Los Angeles Times article, 'Obama struggles to nominate, confirm federal judges,' notes the conundrum faced by Obama (and by other recent Democratic presidents):
"'In September 2005, John G. Roberts Jr., a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, moved up a few blocks onto Capitol Hill to become chief justice of the United States. His seat on the appeals court has remained unfilled ever since."This is also true of appointments to regulatory agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board and the head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The GOP uses the threat of filibusters, which Harry Reid just caved in on ending again, to keep the government from functioning in key areas they want to block, to ensure that positions are not filled.
The vacant seat symbolizes the problems that President Obama had in his first term in quickly nominating judges and winning even routine confirmations in the face of a determined Republican minority. He has had fewer judges confirmed than any first-term president in a quarter of a century, and he is the first chief executive unable to appoint anyone to the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which decides challenges to federal regulations.'
"The impact of a stacked Republican judiciary continues to be a blight upon the Constitution and an ongoing assault upon an independent federal bench."
In the second article from Buzzflash, posted the next day by the same author, Mark Karlin, he continues:
"In 2002, BuzzFlash was one of the foremost promoters of a repentant David Brock. At that time, Brock had written a mea culpa book, 'Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative,' recounting how he had been a journalistic hit man for the extreme right. Indeed, Brock had been instrumental in igniting the Whitewater and Troopergate stories as a means for the Republicans to pursue the eventual impeachment of Bill Clinton. Brock 'reported' for the American Spectator, a right wing attack publication largely financed by Richard Mellon Scaife, who was sort of a one man Koch Brothers in the '90s.
"In short, Brock was a key scribe for what was known as 'The Arkansas Project,' the right wing financed effort to drive Bill Clinton from office despite being elected by the voters of America for two terms. Brock called it a 'contract on Clinton' that included his early articles about Paula Jones that stirred up the Ken Starr lynch mob after the Whitewater findings -- the original purpose of the independent counsel -- ended with the exoneration of the Clintons, who had actually lost money on the deal.
"Due to growing doubts about the motives and veracity of his sponsors – and his coming out as gay at a time when the Republicans were bashing homosexuals with a truncheon of virulent hate, Brock evolved into regarding them as conspiratorialists attempting to undermine democracy.
"However, some progressives were wary of Brock's conversion and doubted that he was sincere. After several conversations with Brock, it became clear to BuzzFlash that he was the real thing: a political journalistic hired gun who had seen the light. We posted interviews with Brock about the book and helped ease doubts about his transformation and epiphany.
"Judge Silberman, along with his wife (right-wing shill Ricky), was an active proponent of removing Clinton from office, even while he ruled – when he should have recused himself -- on motions regarding Starr's runaway investigation.
"That is what brings us to a heavily highlighted personal copy of 'Blinded by the Right' that I used in my interviews with David Brock -- and what it reveals about how the right wing has devastated democracy by key federal appointments beginning with Nixon, but accelerating to the code red stage with Reagan.
"Regarding the key role Sentelle played in appointing Starr and letting him run as wild as a feral wolf without any legal leash, Brock wrote in 2002:
"'Though the post [of overseeing the independent counsel] usually went to more senior judges, in 1992 Rehnquist [the Chief Justice appointed by Reagan who had his own racist baggage] named DC Circuit Court Judge David Sentelle to head the panel that appoints independent counsels. A Reagan appointee who named his daughter Reagan after the president…Sentelle was a hard-line right-winger. In…1991…Sentelle accused "leftist heretics" of attempting to turn the United States into a "collectivist, egalitarian, materialistic, race-conscious, hypersecular, socially permissive state.' (BuzzFlash inserted italics.)
"As BuzzFlash at Truthout noted yesterday, the silent coup taking place in the United States is the hijacking of the United States Constitution by a right wing federal bench. It has been put into place with coordinated Senate/Republican executive branch strategy (when there are GOP presidents) that will shape the US for years to come.
"As Brock wrote in 'Blinded by the Right' in 2002, it was the goal of the Reagan administration and subsequent Republican presidents and majority and minority GOP Senate caucus members 'to force a right-wing economic and social agenda on the country by judicial fiat.' Indeed, it is the right wing that adopted the role of judicial activism that usurped legislative and executive rights under the Constitution. 'Judicial conservatism,' Brock wrote, 'was abandoned by these right-wing judicial extremists.'
"The US will continue to pay the price for countless years to come."
"...pay the price for countless years to come." That parting quote, and the notes by Brock that "it was the goal of the Reagan administration and subsequent Republican presidents and majority and minority GOP Senate caucus members 'to force a right-wing economic and social agenda on the country by judicial fiat..." and "...it is the right wing that adopted the role of judicial activism that usurped legislative and executive rights under the Constitution" are proof positive of the premise of this site: Conservatism is not a political philosophy, it is a cover-up for the "vast right-wing criminal conspiracy," the largest criminal cartel known to man.
It is critical that the Democratic Party stop "playing nice" with the GOP on judicial appointments - it is almost too late - and to lean on the Supreme Court Conservative Five to resign, freeing the President to appoint progressive voices to the Bench that will move us on our way to criminalize Conservatism.
For those of a bent for detailed research, see "The Conservative Takeover of State Judiciaries" from Politics365: http://politic365.com/2012/08/18/the-conservative-takeover-of-state-judiciaries/
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"You make me want to be a better man."
Melvin, paying a compliment to Carol in As Good As It Gets.
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