Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton of D.C. received 89 percent of the vote in her last election, yet anti-choice lawmakers refused to allow her to testify on a bill that specifically targets women in D.C.
This is another Sandra Fluke moment.
Oh, look, DC women being used as a political pawn by fucking assholes WHO DON’T LIVE HERE.
I PAY MY FUCKING TAXES, I WANT MY FUCKING REPRESENTATION.
(via tinfoilandtea)
Via hardgraft.
the darkside reports seem to be down!
(Source: lesumirecastles)
When Bill Clinton came into office after 24 years of Republican presidential rule (with a brief Carter intermission), a large majority of the federal bench had been appointed by Republicans. It was hoped Clinton could correct that, but after the Republican Revolution in 1994, the GOP employed a strategy of halting Democratic appointments.
Over 60 of Clinton’s nominees were prevented from receiving a hearing, let alone a vote. According to Kevin Drum at the Washington Post:
Originally, after Republicans gained control of the Senate in the 1994 elections and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch assumed control of the Judiciary Committee, the rule regarding judicial nominees was this: If a single senator from a nominee’s home state objected to (or “blue-slipped”) a nomination, it was dead. This rule made it easy for Republicans to obstruct Clinton’s nominees.
Drum notes that this “anonymous holds” tactic–allowing a single senator to obstruct a nomination–“was used extensively by Republicans during the Clinton administration.”
Things got so bad, Hatch even bragged that he chose Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees. According to his autobiography, Clinton called to ask who he’d let through, and Hatch suggested Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg for the Supreme Court.
Of course, once George W. Bush took the White House, Hatch and the Republicans removed these impediments to appointment. (Hatch, it should be noted, is now in danger of being ousted by his own party for being too willing to compromise.)
Even with a Democratic Congress, 200 of about 240 nominees put forth by George W. Bush were allowed to be confirmed. Now under Obama, Congress has not confirmed a single nominee in 2012. Of the 23 appointments Obama has made for federal judgeships, three have passed.
(Source: azspot)
Homeland Battlefield Act Portion Found Unconstitutional By New York Judge
Citing a threat to journalists and scholars, a judge on Wednesday struck down as unconstitutional a portion of a law giving the government wide powers to regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan said in a written ruling that a single page of the law has a “chilling impact on First Amendment rights” for journalists and others. She cited testimony by journalists that they feared their association with certain individuals overseas could result in their arrest because a provision of the law subjects anyone who “substantially” or “directly” provides “support” to forces such as al-Qaida or the Taliban can be detained indefinitely. She said the wording was too vague and encouraged Congress to change it.
“An individual could run the risk of substantially supporting or directly supporting an associated force without even being aware that he or she was doing so,” the judge said.
She called the fears of journalists in particular real and reasonable.
The ruling came in a lawsuit challenging the law on behalf of journalists, scholars and others. Forrest cited the vague nature of the law as it pertains to journalists and the government’s inability to provide assurances that the specific conduct at issue would not subject plaintiffs to prosecution and detention.
The National Defense Authorization Act was signed into law in December, allowing for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism.
The lawsuit was filed two weeks later by a group of writers and activists, including Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Christopher Hedges, who testified that the vagueness of the law left him “constantly second-guessing what or what not constitutes terrorist activity under this legislation because it’s so amorphous.”
A message left Wednesday with a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors was not immediately returned.
Bruce Afran, a lawyer for seven individuals and one organization that brought the lawsuit, called the ruling a “great victory for free speech.”
(Source: guiseppegetto)
(Source: batman-likesthecircus)
Some House and Senate Republicans are now admitting what’s been obvious from the start: that the Republican vow to “repeal and replace” Obama’s health law has always been a bait-and-switch…
Just to make the record clear on all of this: Republicans ran on “repeal and replace” in the 2010 election. After the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act in January 2011, five committee chairs wrote an op-ed saying that “replacing this law is a policy and a moral imperative” and pledging that “compassionate, innovative and job-creating health care reform is what’s next.” They said they would “hold hearings in Washington and around the country,” and that “repeal is the first, not the last step.” As recently as this January, a key subcommittee chair was still promising that the repeal bill would be ready to go as soon as the Supreme Court rules on ACA.
But of course, none of that happened. It’s all been a fraud from the beginning. Repeal, yes. Replace? They haven’t even held the hearings they promised.
Oh, and just in case you’re wondering: no, the decision to supposedly switch from a comprehensive bill to a series of smaller measures doesn’t get them off the hook, because sixteen months into Republican control of the House, they haven’t done that, either.
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The GOP: Proving once again that Republican voters have short-term memories, are ignorant of current events, and are easily manipulated by the party’s demagogues.
(via ryking)