Bush/Rove/Cheney/Gonzalez Commissariat

Political appointees oversee science (FDA & global warming) in this administration.

Political appointees botch, bungle and butcher Iraq reconstruction and Katrina relief.

Political appointees are sent into the CIA executive suite for a political cleansing mission.

Political appointees set up a propaganda office in the DOD to deliberately and maliciously mislead the nation into war while refusing to plan for known obstacles ultimately leading to thousand of troop’ deaths and injuries.

The hue and cry over Purgegate is that the Justice Department has traditionally been significantly and honorably immune to rank political interference. Not so under our presently governing thugs.

Despoiling democracy and honor while emulating a Soviet/Communist Commissariat model government is the operational and ethical basis of Gonzalez and his handlers.

Good news. If politicizing the Justice Department finally brings out the backbones of our legislators, Republican and Democratic alike, shout hosannas. Citizens of the entire planet sincerely want the America that strives for honor, honesty and equal treatment under the law to reappear.

Require a supermajority (at least 60, preferably two-thirds) to approve all judicial nominees. This will make it impossible to push unsuitable judges through on a straight party-line vote, and should force presidents to pick moderate, highly qualified nominees who can win bipartisan approval. If this rule had been in place 15 months ago, Alito would never have made it to the Supreme Court.

If the rule had been in place 15 years ago, Clarence Thomas would never have made it either (Thomas was confirmed by a vote of 52-48)

dakine01 @ 58

Agreed these days, but don’t forget, in the late forties/early fifties, those deep south types were mostly Dem. Thurmond was a Dem until breaking away to run for preznint as a “Dixiecrat” in ‘48 because Truman had the audacity to integrate the Army by Executive Order.

While Thurmond and his gang of troglodytes were angered by Truman’s desegregation of the military, it was the campaign during the 1948 Democratic Convention to add an anti-segregation plank to the Party platform–an action prompted by an impassioned speech by Hubert Humphrey (then Mayor of Minneapolis) and later endorsed by Harry Truman–that prompted 35 Southern Delegates to walk out of the convention and form the Dixiecrat Party.

thank you for infos

My opinion is that the beginnings of compromising the judicial branch began with Noxous Nixon and his politicizing “Law and Order” which he used to camoflague his hidden political agenda and created an appeal to a majority. Who indeed is against L&O, particularly when the Dems are target of stop the war dirty hippie protest. Ford’s administration was a period of regrouping and Carter’s was a quiescence comming from lack of agenda to suborn the Judiciary. Come Reagan/Bush41, the department of justice was again the target of the subversive political agenda, this time camoflaged by “moral majority”. This period saw the politization of the Solicitor General from a long tradition of political neutrality to represent the Govt. position to the SCOTUS, suborning the position to a political hack pushing the hidden political agenda. Much damage to governmental oversight of corporate operations was destroyed during this period. Again while the Dems under Clinton administration were in control, the agenda was again mostly quiescent until the usurpation of the presidency by the “W”art on the presidency, the rest is history being revealed as we speak. The attack of the fascist republican agenda is being followed for the last nearly fifty years now, a silent and hidden coup de e’tat on both Judicial and Department of Justice to subvert enforcement and accountability for the agenda of usurping the Constitution and maintaining political power. That is my take on it anyway FWIW. EPU’d bigtime. All the best……..

The term should be a long one – maybe 20 years for a District Court judge, 25 for an Appeals Court judge, and 30 for a Supreme Court Justice, to insulate the judge from politics, and from having to worry about what his/her next job was going to be.

But a non-lifetime term would at least limit the duration of the damage of a bad appointment, and it would also end the occasional practice, exemplified in Clarence Thomas, of nominating the youngest marginally credible ideologues one can find to the Federal bench.

Eli @
88

Scarecrow @ 83

Eli — it’s the disparity between the religious ethical foundation and the willingness to accommodate working in a truly evil administration. Most of my extended family is quite fundamentalist — and they’re all truly decent people — kind, generous, caring and honest. I can’t see them sanctioning torture, or corruption, or lying. And yet, people who claim to be similar did sanction all of that. I can’t sort that out, but it’s scary.

I think we’re basically saying the same thing. How do you reconcile the policies of this administration, and the intolerance of the religious right, with the actual teachings of the New Testament?

I think of the religious right as basically “Old Testament Christians”, far more enamored of the bloody vengeful God of the OT than the compassionate Jesus of the NT.

Of course, I’m an atheist, so possibly I have no idea what I’m talking about…

I think you’re spot on with that. Although avowedly “Christian,” they seem to spend an inordinate amount of time quoting leviticus and the laws. However, since both of those books are so off the wall and beyond anything rational, it is easy to counter argue. Although they refuse to accept the arguments, it is real easy to ding ‘em.

There was an early West Wing where there was a talk radio fest going on in the WH. The prez (Martin Sheen character) confronts a Dr Laura type about her having used the leviticus quote condemning homosexuality. He smacked her down with the quotes from the same book about selling your sister into slavery and a few of the other more obscene directions from that chapter.

For myself, I find most of the ten commandments (have a bit of trouble with that graven image and keeping the sabbath holy), the Golden Rule, and the beatitudes as divinely inspired. The rest makes for some interesting (and not so interesting) reading for the mythological and some historical import.

My $.02

I like the community stuff of a church or any relig. group, and I love going to the youth group, but I don’t want them tell me what I NEED to do.

Bugboy @ 71

Rayne @ 61

This also explains why some of the folks appointed to USA’s as replacements are so very, VERY young — if they somehow snag a lifetime appointment to the judiciary next, they have as many as 40 years to shape the bench, graduating eventually to SCOTUS.

OMFG! POD PEOPLE!! I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out how two punks from Biblethumper U.’s ended up with cushy jobs in WH/DOJ – well there’s my answer – future judge fodder.

Or how they wound up serving an unethical administration. When have we seen the religious background kick in, except for the guy who was coordinating the WH faith based handouts?

I bet that they ONLY hire lawyers from bible schools. They don’t want the best. they just want their base.

Does anyone know the retirement package for Federal judges? hhmmmm…

I never inquire about another man’s package.