I still haven’t heard anything approaching a logical explanation for Obama’s neglect of judicial nominations:
To make a casual prediction, Barack Obama’s legacy as president will have as much to do with the federal bench as much as it will with the Affordable Care Act. For a variety of reasons, Obama has been far less aggressive in filling judicial vacancies than his predecessors. If he wins re-election, this isn’t a huge problem – he has four more years with which to fill the federal judiciary and balance its rightward tilt. But if he loses, we can expect President Romney/Perry to stack the lower courts – and eventually, the Supreme Court – with a variety of conservative ideologues. In other words, because of Obama’s neglect, we stand a good chance of giving conservative ideologues the tools they need to dismantle the welfare state, and leave liberals in a losing battle against right-wing legal theories.
Again, Obama is a lying, corporatist, plutocrat so nothing that he does or doesn’t do should come as a surprise to anyone. That said, in November 2012 he must be reelcted. To elect a Republicen is suicide.
“I still haven’t heard anything approaching a logical explanation for Obama’s neglect of judicial nominations”
Maybe John Boehner hasn’t given him a list of candidates yet?
“If he wins re-election, this isn’t a huge problem – he has four more years with which to fill the federal judiciary and balance its rightward tilt.”
Why would anyone at this point expect him to appoint truly liberal judges when he finally gets around to the job? Obama doesn’t care about balance. He’s not going to stop the judiciary’s rightward tilt with centrist and conservative jurists.
I’d say it’s a feature, not a bug.
Extend and expand. Just not a recognizably Democratic, much less liberal, agenda.
Corporatist and Republican agenda? Why, yes!
Why would anyone at this point expect him to appoint truly liberal judges when he finally gets around to the job?
because he has. i mean, he has gotten a few judges through (including, full disclosure, a friend of a friend who is now one of the first out lesbians on the federal bench). i have appeared before a few of them in my cases and they are good to me. (much better than bush’s appointees who are uniformly hostile to me as i represent labor unions)
the reason he hasn’t appointed more is because the old system (where sitting senators for the states that have federal vacancies would recommend names to the president) has broken down amidst the partisan paralysis in the senate and the president hasn’t put enough resources behind creating a new system to generate candidates. and even among the ones who are appointed, most have been blocked by individual senators, or are subject to a filibuster by the GOP leadership.
The Republicans have been quoted as saying they assumed he’d simply make recess appointments.
yeah, it drives me crazy that obama avoids making recess appointments. (he has done it, but only after two years of obstruction and none of them were judicial nominees). i think he avoided making recess appts for so long because it was all part of his fetishization of compromise–a recess appointment is too unilateral for his tastes (never mind that the other side has no incentive to agree to a compromise unless you first show you are willing to pull the unilateral trigger).
anyway, once obama started talking recess appointments, the GOP engineered holding pro forma sessions during congressional breaks so congress never technically went into recess, blocking the president’s ability to make recess appointments. (while the GOP came up with the idea, they only pulled it off with cooperation of the democratic leadership in congress). congress has held those pro forma sessions for, i believe, every congressional recess in the past year, since obama made his first recess appointments in 2010.
Right. It’s all the fault of the “obstructionist” GOP. What a crock. The fact is that the oligarchy calls the tune and all of our elected officials do a Kabuki dance. Don’t focus on the process. Focus on the games being played. The 1% gets its way because they control 40% of the wealth. Us 99% get to fight over the crumbs. The mayor of New York City (Tammany) once said that “You can always hire half the poor to kill off the other half.” It was true when he said it and it’s still true. War is Peace.
so you believe that john boehner and barak obama are really in cahoots with one another and are conspiring to make sure that judicial vacancies are not filled? how does that make sense? if they really were working together at the behest of the oligarchs, why not work together to pack the courts with pro-oligarchy judges? why bother with the obstruction kibuki at all? and, for that matter, why is the oligarchy letting some rather liberal obama-appointed judges get through?
Snuzy, thanks for your explanation, makes a lot of sense.
Yes, this is one of the reasons we MUST vote for Democrats. Only they can save the courts.
It’s so sad Obama didn’t take advantage of having both houses of Congress in Dem hands. Gee…maybe that’s a feature, not a bug?
With a split Congress, he can plausibly deny he’s avoiding making liberal, or just Democratic, appointments.
With a full Repub Congress he’ll be golden, eh?
Jeralyn posted this on 9/27 at Talk Left: The Senate finally confirmed 6 US Attorneys, and 5 —count ’em, FIVE— are REPUBLICANS.
About the intense infighting between the two sides of the same coin legacy parties: When the fight is really to retain or obtain the largesse of the Corporatist Big Money donors the fighting can be merciless.
Also, for Corporatist Dems, the intense “rivalry” gives them plausible deniability so they can continue to better bamboozle their voters into thinking they give a damn about the 99%. They may actually give a damn about those upper income groups, as they can still make sizeable donations, but the lower economic echelons of the 99% are nearly worthless as donors. When pols are bought those without the gold can’t do much buying or persuading.
Now, when huge numbers of people put their bodies on the street? That may have some influence. The Powers That Be right now are probably depending on Ol’ Man Winter to be their BFF in getting those bodies to move off the streets, out of the parks and plazas, and into warmer structures.
I wonder how many Dem mayors are being hospitable to the Occupy protesters and how many are working hard to get them out of their faces ASAP…. For those who are not using heavy police power to harrass and arrest, I’m seeing strong moves to try to establish OWS “leaders” who will then have “something to lose” by not cooperating with the Powers That Be.
Well, giving conservative ideologues the tools they need to dismantle the welfare state, and leave liberals in a losing battle against right-wing legal theories is his JOB. They all work for the same boss, remember? How else do you explain Democrats’ failure to do anything to help the poor and/or the working class? They’re not there to help the poor and/or the working class.
In mathematical terms, they’re zeros, place holders, just someone to house-sit the White House and Congress until the stench left by the previous inhabitants has faded from the memories of the American people.