Political end run

[Gonz]

About time he got shitty with the childish games

After Democrats blocked the nomination for more than two years, President Bush installed Mississippi Judge Charles Pickering to a federal appeals court in a recess appointment.

The move bypasses the confirmation process, allowing Pickering to serve on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans until the next Congress is seated in January 2005.

 

[freako104]

oh joy. a racist on the courts.

 

[Gonz]

Eric...has there ever been a thought to pass through your head that wasn't cleared by the DNC first?

 

[chcr]

Hmmm...

As a federal district court judge, Charles Pickering has been indifferent and sometimes even hostile to cases brought to address injustices. In 1994, Judge Pickering presided over a case in which the government brought criminal charges against three individuals for burning a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple. Two of the defendants pled guilty, but Daniel Swan went to trial and was convicted of charges resulting in a mandatory seven years in prison. Although Pickering has a reputation for being a law-and-order judge, he claimed to have been troubled by the disparities between Swan's sentence and those of his two co-defendants. He repeatedly used off-the-record threats and other methods to force prosecutors to drop the most serious charge against Swan. Pickering then sentenced Swan to 27 months in prison-almost five fewer years than the law required-for an act that he called a "drunken prank."

Pickering's actions on the bench reinforce dramatically that the insensitivity he demonstrated as a young lawyer towards some of the most divisive issues our nation has faced continues unabated. As a law student in 1959, Pickering wrote an article suggesting a way for Mississippi to strengthen its law against interracial marriage. Soon after his law school graduation, he formed a three-person law partnership with a man who ran for governor as a "total segregationist." Later, as a legislator serving in the all-white Mississippi state Senate, he voted against several measures intended to expand electoral opportunities for African- Americans. He also voted to continue funding for the Sovereignty Commission, a notorious state-funded agency founded to fight desegregation in Mississippi and to spy on civil rights and union activists.

Facts seem to bear Eric out. I guess it must be the press's left-wing predeliction for reporting the facts.

 

[Gonz]

I love the way liberal organizations dupe the public using names that include INDEPENDENT, FREE, American, etc when they are nowhere near that.

With an opposition list like this, he's got to be okay

Hundreds of organizations, individuals and elected officials have announced their opposition to Pickering’s nomination:

African-American organizations and leaders in Mississippi, including every local chapter and the state chapter of the NAACP, the Legislative Black Caucus, the Magnolia Bar Association, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Mississippi Worker’s Center for Human Rights, and more.

National legal and civil rights organizations, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Alliance for Justice, the Human Rights Campaign, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the National Bar Association and more.

Local and national women’s rights groups, including the American Association of University Women, the National Women’s Law Center, the National Partnership for Women and Families, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the National Womens Political Caucus, and more.

Labor organizations, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of School Administrators, AFSME, UNITE!, the United Steelworkers of America, and more.

 

[chcr]

I love the way liberal organizations dupe the public using names that include INDEPENDENT, FREE, American, etc when they are nowhere near that.

With an opposition list like this, he's got to be okay

I love the way conservatives think the source is more important than the facts.

 

[Gonz]

Sens. Charles Schumer and Patrick Leahy insist that nobody ever insinuated that Pickering was a racist.

Terry McAuliffe said that President Bush was trying to "disenfranchise" black voters in Mississippi by nominating Pickering, it was all in good fun.

Liberal columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. admits that "the anti-Pickering campaign did get ugly," but his spin is that Democrats ended up opposing him on defensible grounds-e.g., the fact that his decisions have been "so often reversed on appeal." Except that this fact is not a fact at all: Pickering's reversal rate is lower than the average in his circuit or in the nation.

The Democrats do not really believe that Pickering (or Ashcroft) is a racist, of course; in 1990, Pickering was unanimously approved for the district judgeship he now holds. But he was a target of convenience, being a white male Republican from Mississippi of a certain age,

NRO

 

[chcr]

And of course his actions are completely irrelevant.

 

[Gonz]

Let's begin with the date shall we, then at which even the Dems acknowledge from teh quotes above

In 1959, as a law student, Pickering wrote an article regarding miscegenation (inter-racial marriages).25 Nowhere in the article does Pickering endorse or approve of laws banning inter-racial marriages. Rather, his article was an "academic treatise on a legal question"26 written in light of a recent decision that had been handed down by a Mississippi state court.27


25-Charles W. Pickering, Criminal Law-Miscegenation-Incest, 30 miss l.j.326 (1959).
26-Susan Traylor, Pickering Nomination May Not Be Settled, Gannett News Service, Sept. 27, 1990.
27-Ratcliff v. State, 107 So.2d 738 (Miss. 1958).

 

[chcr]

As a federal district court judge, Charles Pickering has been indifferent and sometimes even hostile to cases brought to address injustices. In "1994", Judge Pickering presided over a case in which the government brought criminal charges against three individuals for burning a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple. Two of the defendants pled guilty, but Daniel Swan went to trial and was convicted of charges resulting in a mandatory seven years in prison. Although Pickering has a reputation for being a law-and-order judge, he claimed to have been troubled by the disparities between Swan's sentence and those of his two co-defendants. He repeatedly used off-the-record threats and other methods to force prosecutors to drop the most serious charge against Swan. Pickering then sentenced Swan to 27 months in prison-almost five fewer years than the law required-for an act that he called a "drunken prank."

The cracker doesn't fall far from the box.

 

[Gonz]

troubled by the disparities between Swan's sentence and those of his two co-defendants

Precedence is there. It just happened again.

Look at a smilar situation in Fl. The black kid kills someone, turns down the plea, goes to trial, found guilty & sentenced to life. It's overturned so he can accept the plea.

 

[Gonz]

Charles Pickering has been indifferent and sometimes even hostile

He's supposed to be indifferent. That is his job.

Hostile? To what? More BS racism charges or to the few truly horrendous situation?

 

[chcr]

He's supposed to be indifferent. That is his job.

Hostile? To what? More BS racism charges or to the few truly horrendous situation?

Yeah, whatever.

 

[Squiggy]

Eric...has there ever been a thought to pass through your head that wasn't cleared by the DNC first?

I can't believe that came from our very own Rush Limbaugh Jr....

 

[Gonz]

Which, pray tell, party does my thinking?

I despise where the Democrat party has ended up.

I haven't voted for a Republican (national) since Reagan.

Well....?


and I've repeatedly told you, Limbaugh comes to me for ideas

 

[paul_valaru]

are there any other parties beside republicans and democrats?

no in between party?

those 2 never agree on anything, they bothe have good an bad points.

 

[Gonz]

There are several....only 2 or 3 have even more than a passing interest to anybody.

The more parties you have the more likely there is to be a mess.

 

[chcr]

are there any other parties beside republicans and democrats?

no in between party?

those 2 never agree on anything, they bothe have good an bad points.

That's just marketing Paul. In fact, both sides are basically interested in getting elected, doing favors for those who got them elected and staying in office as long as possible. Toward this end, they will lie, cheat, steal and make any number of deals with any number of special interest groups. I have evidently missed the "good points." The idea that they were supposed to represent their constituency was forgotten a long time ago.

 

[freako104]

are there any other parties beside republicans and democrats?

no in between party?

those 2 never agree on anything, they bothe have good an bad points.

the GOP party,the green party, indenpendents

 

[Inkara1]

the GOP party,the green party, indenpendents

You know, someone less experienced and knowledgeable than myself might think you seriously thought that the GOP was its own party instead of shorthand for "Republican Party."