LAT: Jurists Picked for Showdown on Filibuster (Brown, CA, Owen, TX)

[DeepModem Mom]

Jurists Picked for Showdown on Filibuster
Frist propels California and Texas justices to the center of the political brawl. The Senate will consider their nominations next week.

By Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown and a Texas judge were named Friday as the federal judicial nominees who will be considered by the Senate next week, a move expected to trigger a long-awaited showdown with Democrats.

The announcement Friday by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) propels Brown and Priscilla R. Owen, a justice on the Texas Supreme Court, to center stage of a political brawl that has gripped the Senate for weeks — over use of the filibuster against a president's picks for federal judgeships....

***

Brown has been compared by some to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Like Thomas, she is an African American who grew up poor in the segregated South of the 1950s. Also like Thomas, she emerged as a conservative critic of affirmative action and government benefit programs in the 1980s.

She has been praised by conservatives and slammed by liberals for some of her speeches. Speaking at Pepperdine University in 1999, Brown disputed the doctrine of separation of church and state. She also questioned whether the Bill of Rights, including the 1st Amendment, applied to the states.

Owen, who received the highest score among her group when she took the Texas bar exam, has been characterized by her critics as an ultraconservative who bends her decisions to fit her political views, such as her opposition to abortion rights....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-judges14may14,0,6368863.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Demit]

1. Isn't Owen the one that even Albert Gonzales called an "activist judge"

when he was AG in Texas?

edited to clarify (I googled and found this excerpt from a Houston Chronicle column in 2002:

"If President Bush really wants "strict constructionists" on the federal bench, why on earth did he nominate Priscilla R. Owen to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals? She's got to be a finalist for Judicial Activist of the Year.
<...>

It doesn't take a raving pinko to catch on to Owen's act. Actually, it was pointed out very astutely by Alberto R. Gonzales, now Bush's White House counsel, when he was on the state's top civil court with her.

In dissents and concurrences in abortion cases two years ago, Owen said everything except that the U.S. Supreme Court majority in Roe v. Wade should be shot at dawn. She sought to contort the state court's already conservative interpretation of the parental notification provision to make it even more, well, conservative.

Gonzales, hardly an ACLU flamer, took a moment in his concurring opinion in one abortion case to point out that what the dissenters (who included Owen) were trying to accomplish were "policy decisions for the Legislature." What the dissenters had in mind, Gonzales said, "would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism."

http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/000176.html

[BadNews]

13. What do you think, will Owens or Ashcroft be *'s nomination to the SCOTUS?

Perhaps both.

[oasis]

2. Frist doesn't give a shit about how he'll go down in history. Bill will

be applauded by his right wing cronies until he meets his maker with $$$millions to show for his efforts.

[AndyTiedye]

7. The Victors Write the History Books

and to say that it doesn't look good for our side would be an understatment.

The base closing are an obvious attempt at blackmail.

If this goes through, the Republicans, and by extension the fundies
and the robber barons, will have absolute control. That includes
control over the electoral process, guaranteeing Republican "victories"
in all future elections, which would become about as meaningful as they
were under Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

[realFedUp]

3. Republicans using women again

These women shouldn't be elevated to federal
court justices but it's interesting how Republicans
are using these women as the first line soldiers,
sure to go down, as political fodder....maybe
to exhaust the other side in the future re-nomination
fight.

A wacko is a wacko, whether male or female,
skin color just that.

[oasis]

4. Janice Rogers' background being played up for emotional dividends.

Another Condi Rice story. Poor black kid from the segregated south fighting against the odds.

Routine Rove bullcrap.

[realFedUp]

5. yeah, that story is getting old...nt

[DeepModem Mom]

6. My guess is, if Jeb doesn't run, Rove will run Condi in 2008....

Not only is she a minority woman, which makes her difficult to oppose, but she is as malleable as W.

[AndyTiedye]

8. They Could Even Run Walden O'Dell -- They Sure Owe Him

We Make Democracy DIE

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Well, that issue...

is indeed another consideration, looking to 2008.

[AndyTiedye]

10. If It Were Not for Diebold...

President Kerry would be reversing some of the more ludicrous tax
cuts, and the economy would be in much better shape, with the
budget coming back into balance. He would also restore many of the
domestic programs that were slashed during the Bush regime.

We would not have lost the Senate in 2002. The Iraq war might not
have occurred at all, and we would be looking forward to a new,
liberal Chief Justice on the Supreme Court.

No Iraq war would have meant a few trillion dollars less debt,
and much better relations with the rest of the world.
People in other countries would still want to buy American stuff.


has a lot to answer for

[BadNews]

11. I call BUSHLIT!!!!

If the '04 election was fixed, why oh why is the Democratic party not screaming that it was fixed at the top of their lungs from every rooftop? Kerry and Clinton are running in '08, why would they do that if they knew the fix was in? Are they fools? They have connections, this couldn't be covered up.

We lost. It is easier to make excuses outside of our control than to admit we came up short. What worries me is that while many of us keep wallowing in a pool of tears crying that they don't play fair, they are preparing to win seats in '06 and get Rice into the white house in '08.

What you are pedaling is a rationalization for being complacent as the next elections draw closer.

[KittyWampus]

14. Why? Cause It's A Catch 22. Without Hard Evidence Dems Can't Open Machines

to investigate for fraud. And without opening the machines they can't GET hard evidence to prove fraud. And yet they'd need to have that hard evidence to open the machines for fraud.

That simple.

And you think the corporate media would report on things favorably for Democrats or would they snicker and label them 'tinfoilers'?

FRANKLY, IT'S EASIER TO PRETEND WE LOST AND IGNORE THE ELECTION FRAUD.

[BadNews]

17. No, it is not easier to pretend we lost. If '04 was rigged, so will...

'06 & '08. If the Dibold fix is in, next time they will lose their Senate seats. You cannot win a rigged game. There is nothing to lose by complaining from that day to this. The only way it is worse to be quiet is if the allegations are false. (Which I think they are.)

The reason they don't complain is because they believe the election was legitimate.

[AndyTiedye]

18. They Hope That if They Don't Talk About Diebold they Won't Get Diebolded

If '04 was rigged, so will '06 & '08. If the Dibold fix is in, next time they will lose their Senate seats. You cannot win a rigged game.

The Dems know it's rigged, but since the Republicans control everything
in Washington, bills such as HR.550 and S.330 go noplace.

The repubs don't want everybody to know that it is rigged yet,
so some of the Dems will be allowed to stay on as long as they don't
rock the boat too much. Each is only allowed a certain number of
dissenting votes though, which is why they tend to trade off.

There are also some states left where repubs don't have full control
of the voting yet. That will change if the filibuster goes down, as
they can then force all states to use machines that they can manipulate.
They'll probably call it HAVA-2.

Their ability to maniuplate elections is still limited in some states,
and they are working on that. In states like Florida and Ohio, they
control every aspect of the electoral process.

It would be prudent to take Walden O'Dell at his word when he said,
"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes for the president"
and as the CEO of Diebold Corporation he would have been in a very
good position to help!
The security on those machines is essentially nonexistant, and many
are equipped for remote access. While we have focused on the actual
voting machines, the central tabulators are also vulnerable.

Even if Ohio didn't get Diebolded, it certainly got Blackwelled.
Democratic precincts had voting machines taken away, polling places moved and combined
with others, leading to 9-hour lines in some cases. Those who did so often found
they had been directed to the wrong line, so they were forced to cast
a provisional
ballot (nearly all of which were rejected). There was also an astoundingly
high number of ballots from those same precincts that registered no
vote for President. Do you really think those people waited 9 hours
to vote for nobody for President? Something went badly wrong there.
In one case, they used a fake "terrorism alert" to eject all the poll
watchers from the count, after which they completed the count without
any oversight and posted returns of about 3-1 in Bush's favor. It
was a Republican county, but not that Republican. Bush doesn't
poll that well in his home state. In some precincts they had more
votes for Bush than there were registered voters.

Florida had more attempts to intimidate voters, and they still haven't
reinstated most of the eligible voters they threw off the roles in 2000.

Then there are the exit polls. Exit polls used to be extremely accurate
until 2000, when something odd happened to the exit polls in Florida.
Then all the exit polls were missing in action in 2002, while several
double-digit upsets occurred in Georgia which was using the new
Diebold Republican Electing (DRE) machinez for the first time.
The final pre-election polling had Gov. Barnes and Sen. Cleland
winning by very comfortable margins, but they "lost".
Then in 2004, final pre-election polls and all the exit polls showed
Kerry winning the election. Early returns were good. Then something
happened and all the numbers started changing. Just like in 2000.

[BadNews]

12. It will be a Gulianni/Rice ticket.

They are hoping to win either NY or CA with candidates from both states. They will get neither.

By the way, is that how you spell the name of the ex-mayor of NY?

[Demit]

15. Guliani? We should only hope. He's the guy who blamed the troops

for those missing explosives, remember? That and his shady dealings with Bernie Kerik pretty much made toast of his national political aspirations. Sure, bring on Guliani.

[DeepModem Mom]

16. It's "Giuliani," BN. NT