ACSBlog

by Jeremy Leaming

ACS President Caroline Fredrickson provided context to the discussion over Senate Republicans’ efforts to scuttle President Obama’s judicial nominations, in particular focusing on the three vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

During a June 2 segment on MSNBC’s “Melissa Harris-Perry” show, Fredrickson said Americans should understand that a “vast majority” of high-profile and constitutional weighty cases have to be heard by the D.C. Circuit.

“Major cases involving regulations” of our health care system, environment, and workers’ rights are heard by the Court, as well as major national security cases and voting rights cases. The majority of such cases are “required to go to the D.C. Circuit,” meaning the Court is one of the more powerful in the country, she said. And as noted on this blog frequently Senate Republicans, especially Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), are bent on keeping the president from making a lasting imprint on the D.C. Circuit. For instance, Grassley is pushing a bill to cut the 11-member court to eight seats thereby preventing Obama from placing any more judges on that court. (Recently the Senate confirmed Obama’s nomination of Sri Srinivasan to a seat on the D.C. Circuit, after twice blocking the president’s initial nomination to the Court.)

Fredrickson noted that when George W. Bush was president Grassley had no complaints about the number of seats on the D.C. Circuit, instead strongly supporting the president’s constitutional duty to fill vacancies on the federal bench. Fredrickson noted that Grassley and other Republicans “fought like hell to get George Bush’s nominees on the D.C. Circuit when the caseload was not only lower, but they wanted to go right up to the 11th seat and now they say eight is plenty.”

Fredrickson and the other panelists, including the Alliance for Justice’s Nan Aron, also touched upon discussion in the Senate to alter the filibuster to make it more transparent and a bit more difficult for the obstructionists to abuse. Part of the reason for renewed interest in reforming the filibuster is that Senate Republicans are showing no signs of making it any easier for the president to fill judicial vacancies and some executive branch vacancies.

See the entire segment below or visit this link.

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by Jeremy Leaming

President Obama’s address to the National Defense University was quickly embraced by many high-profile pundits as evidence the 44th president would actually and finally offer change one could believe in. Specifically, change from the way his predecessor presided over a never-ending war on terror.

As noted here, during his May 23 speech the president provided some lofty rhetoric suggesting significant change was underway to counter intensifying criticism from civil libertarians and human rights advocates that the Obama administration is trampling fundamental constitutional principles and values while waging the so-called war on terror.

The New York Times editorial board lauded Obama’s speech as “the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post 9/11 America. For the first time a president stated clearly and equivocally the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future.”

Many other pundits also heralded the speech as a major shift in policy, while others, such as Alex Pareene warned that those concerned about human rights and civil liberties would likely be seriously disappointed.

Today, The Times reported that Pakistani officials said a CIA drone strike had supposedly “killed a top member of the Pakistani Taliban, an attack that illustrated the continued murkiness of the rules that govern the United States’ targeted killing operations.” Before his much-trumpeted counterterrorism speech, The Times reported that the administration would start shifting control of the drone strikes from the CIA to the military.

Obama’s speech received a lukewarm response from the ACLU, which has fought to obtain more information about the administration’s drone warfare. This blog also noted that a mere speech without action would not squelch criticism of counterterrorism efforts that violate U.S. and international law. The president declared early in his first term that we must protect fundamental values, such as due process under the law, as vigilantly as we wage war against terrorists. But such talk has too often proven hollow.

In a piece for The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald scored the president for a trend of advancing rhetoric that doesn’t reflect reality. Greenwald wrote, “what should be beyond dispute at this point is that Obama’s speeches have very little to do with Obama’s actions, except to the extent that they often signal what he intends not to do. How many times does Obama have to deliver a speech embracing a set of values and policies, only to watch as he then proceeds to do the opposite, before one ceases to view his public proclamations as predictive of his future choices?”