Friday, October 31, 2008

Federal Court Judges - Obama as President Will Stack the Courts

In an article in the WSJ, dated 10/29/08, titled "Obama's 'Redistribution' Constitution, Steven G. Calabresi, a professor at Northwestern University, writes "One of the great unappreciated stories of the past 8 years is how thoroughly Democrats thwarted efforts by President Bush to appoint judges to the lower federal courts.

In his two terms President Reagen appointed eight judges; George W. Bush appointed only four judges. Although 2 seats were open on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Bush nominee Peter Keisler has been denied even a committee vote for 2 years. Obama, if elected, will most certainly fill those 2 vacant seats, and 6 other seats; 2 Clinton appointees and 4 Reagan appointees.

The net result is that the legal left will have a majority on the nation's most important regulatory court of appeals. The balance will shift as well on almost all of the 12 other federal appeals courts.

On the Supreme Court, 6 of the current nine justices will be 70 years old or older on January 20,2009. There is widespread expectation that the next president could make 4 appointment in just his first term, with maybe 2 more in his second term.

These numbers ought to raise serious concern (I believe it is too late now) because of Obama's extreme left-wing views about the role of judges. He believes and is quite open about it, that judges ought to decide cases in light of empathy they ought to feel for the little guy in any lawsuit. Speaking in July 2007 at a conference of Planned Parenthood, he said: We need somebody who has got heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

On this view, plaintiffs should usually win against defendants in civil cases; criminal in cases against the police; consumers, employees against stockholder in suits brought against corporations and citizens in suits brought against the government. Empathy, not justice, ought to be the mission of the federal courts, and the redistribution of wealth should be their mantra.

Obama believes that the Constitution as written is only a guarantee of negative liberties from government--and not an entitlement to a right to welfare or economic justice. He'd change that. His presidential oath is to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Will he support the Constitution as written or does he support amendments to guarantee welfare? Is his provision of a "tax cut" to millions of Americans who currently pay no no taxes merely a foreshadowing of constitutional rights to welfare, health care, Social Security, vacation time, sick leave, more paternity time off and the redistribution of wealth?

Yes, of course it is. And people voting for him know it to. So many of them voting for the first time want the United States of America to become the United States of Welfare

The federal courts hang in the balance, and it is the left which is poised to capture them.

Many people do not understand that the very idea of liberty and the rule of law are at stake n this election. Obama as president will replace justice with empathy.

And the progressive Democrats, the asset-safe rich, academics and college students looking for a "cause" (think the far left professors at the University of Chicago and Columbia and the students they brainwash. In fact the far left leaning Democrat professors at almost any college (except Hillsdale College, in Hillsdale, Michigan).

Wake up, America. But I fear it is too late.

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