Goodwin Liu and Robert Chatigny: Obama’s Worst Judicial Nominees Yet?
The U.S. Senate will soon consider two of Barack Obama’s worst judicial nominations: Goodwin Liu for a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Robert Chatigny to the 2nd Circuit.
Both nominees have shown an arrogant contempt for the law, a total disregard for the limited role of the judiciary in a democracy, and a brutal inclination to abuse judicial power to impose their own peculiar left-wing ideologies on the American people.
Liu, currently a professor at the University of California, makes no secret of his socialist proclivities or his willingness to impose those views via judicial dictation. No elections, no referenda, no legislative debates, no executive branch review. Just the tyranny of one unelected judge imposing his will on the American people.
In a 2008 Stanford Law Review article, Liu wrote that judicial recognition of welfare rights was mandatory:
Courts should leverage the legislature’s own publicly stated commitment to welfare … and then inquire whether or not apparent qualifications on that commitment comprise part of the social understanding of the commitment itself.
In other words: if the judge thinks the legislature has not raised welfare benefits sufficiently, or has refused to provide welfare benefits to illegal aliens or convicted felons, then it is up to the judge to destroy the legislature’s decisions, or the public’s choice in a referendum, and to impose his own views of how the taxpayers’ money ought to be spent.
Want illegal aliens to attend state universities, and to pay lower tuition than out-of-state American citizens? Don’t ask the people. Don’t ask the governor. Don’t ask an elected state legislature. Ask Judge Liu to “leverage the legislature.”
This judicial radicalism can — and according to Professor Liu, must — be extended to public education, public housing, and who knows what else.
If a state university system is not large enough to accommodate all applicants, Judge Liu will order the building of a new campus. If rents are too high, Judge Liu will order the state or city to build more public housing. Judge Liu will mandate it because he believes the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause allegedly “commands” it, whether 135 years of American constitutional law and American history support his judicial decisions or not.
Seems like these two would would make good exceptions to the general rule against filibustering judicial appointments.
“Liu, currently a professor at the University of California, makes no secret of his socialist proclivities or his willingness to impose those views via judicial dictation. No elections, no referenda, no legislative debates, no executive branch review. Just the tyranny of one unelected judge imposing his will on the American people.”
A judicial dictatorship? No way!
Robert Chatigny;
“In 12 child pornography cases, he violated federal law by issuing less severe prison sentences than are mandated by federal sentencing guidelines.”
No FREAKIN’ way!
Is this some kind of game Obama’s playing? Is is a strategy, throw a couple of real stinkers out there so that later the more acceptable radically left leaning candidates will get passed?
Perhaps more can be taken from this. Obama is himself an attorney. Did he choose them because they share common beliefs? If so, that’s pretty scary.
obama was sent to be mentored by a marxist when obama was ten years old.
said marxist was Frank Marshall Davis. Davis was a pedophile. so there is some troubling history here.
Why are you spreading the nasty rumour that Frank Marshall Davis was a “pedophile”? Are you trying to railroad Davis with just the trumped-up evidence that his porn novel included sex with an underage teenager, or is there any empirical evidence, such as court records or confirmatory statements from Davis himself? A novel is fiction, and is fraudulent evidence for such accusations! Do you also consider the author of “Lolita” to be a pedophile, or just Davis? Perhaps it’s time for MythBusters to take a closer look at this unsubstantiated claim.
Frank Marshall Davis undeniably wrote a scandalous memoir-novel under the pseudonym Bob Greene, one chapter of which is devoted to fictional character Bob Greene and his wife having sex with a thirteen-year old girl. This fact was accurately reported on August 24, 2008 by Toby Hamden on a British website
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2601914/Frank-Marshall-Davis-alleged-Communist-was-early-influence-on-Barack-Obama.html).
From this kernel of truth, however, forensic deconstruction may reveal that Hamden and others skillfully built a slanderous house of cards in framing Davis as a pedophile based solely on his novel. To wit:
1. FALSE ATTRIBUTION: According to Hamden, “Mr. Davis (writing as Greene) explains that although he has “changed names and identities…all incidents I have described have been taken from actual experiences.”
a. Please note that the fictional character Bob Greene, not author Davis, alleges that incidents were taken from actual experiences. Even Hamden’s travesty of journalism only stated that Mr. Davis confirmed that he was the author, not that Davis said the events actually occurred in his own life.
b. Casual readers of Hamden’s story may not have noticed this sleight of hand (fallacy of equivocation) when substituting author Davis for fictional character Bob Greene as the subject of experiences in the book. In this one maneuver, Hamden cleverly shifted the identity of subject “he” from Greene to Davis, thereby indicating that Greene’s fictional story actually happened to Davis in real life. This deception, however, reveals Hamden’s intent to directly smear Davis and thereby indirectly smear Obama through guilt-by-association.
2. ESCALATION #1: On the same day (August 24) Hamden’s report was published, so-called “Accuracy In Media” (AIM) published a new report citing Hamden’s story. (AIM had already published numerous reports defaming Frank Marshall Davis starting in February 2008.) AIM now reported that Edgar Tidwell, an “expert in the life and writing of Davis,” confirmed that Frank Marshall Davis wrote “Sex Rebel: Black” as a semi-autobiographical novel. Despite Tidwell’s expert opinion that the novel was SEMI-autobiographical, AIM escalated accusations against Davis by claiming he was a sex pervert (http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-red-mentor-was-a-pervert/) based on Hamden’s same-day report. Kincaid falsely attributed the “pervert” claim to Hamden’s report.
3. ESCALATION #2: On 14 October, AIM again escalated the charges by falsely claiming Davis was an “admitted child molester”
(http://www.aim.org/aim-column/was-a-communist-obamas-sex-teacher/).
4. SUMMARY: Evidence strongly suggests that Hamden and AIM worked together on this story before either post was published on August 24: AIM’s post referenced Hamden’s story although both were published the same day. Further, AIM’s false attribution of the “pervert” claim to Hamden’s story suggests AIM referenced Hamden’s draft rather than a final version.
“Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Wow, I didn’t think Davis was a pedophile before your comment but I sure do now. Thanks. I was aware that he had a very heavy involvement with the American Communist Party in Chicago and had to move to Hawaii to avoid some problems with the FBI but this information about his writing a book with a character raping a thirteen year old was news to me. Fiction of course is not reality but this guy was an odd choice as a mentor for Obama’s grandfather to chose to start with. Then again there is some odd behavior in the grandfather’s background as well. Rumors of some espionage for the Russians at an airplane plant in Witchita, Kansas if I remember correctly. Boy lucky we have fully vetted the man who is currently residing in the most powerful position in the free world.
Nickel: Although pornography may be mainstream, the pornography disinformation against Frank Marshall Davis is just as heinous as the political disinformation. At a minimum, it indicates a cognitive disorder manifested by an inability to distinguish fact from fiction, in the manner of soap opera fans who blame actors for their characters’ misdeeds.
Further, it suggests that those making such false accusations may be projecting their own libidinous psychological disorders onto Davis. Do those spewing such nonsense also believe that John Cleland personally experienced the erotic adventures of “Fanny Hill,” or that Nabokov was sexually involved with Lolita? Do they believe that Jonathan Swift personally experienced the adventures of “Gulliver’s Travels”?
The issue is rather simple: Either you literally attribute fictional characters’ stories to their authors’ real lives, or you accept that fictional characters’ stories are fiction. By definition, even semi-autobiographical novels are fictionalized accounts of their authors’ own lives. Research should reveal that ALL fictional narrators of such novels claim the events are true, although their actual authors make no such claims!
“The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.” – William O. Douglas
Why the major defense of Frank Marshall Davis? Are you saying he wasn’t a communist?
Good question! Here I only addressed the specific accusation that he was a pedophile, which is a totally trumped-up charge. His connection to the CPUSA is another issue, which I addressed with AIM’s researcher Max Friedman here: http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2009/05/31/judge-sonia-sotomayor-and-singing-sensation-susan-boyle/#comment-13017
Not too much too worry about here, when these appointments come up for confirmation the new Senate mostly Republican or at the least conservative will not confirm these Bozos so Obama will be forced to find a real conservative or else they will not be appointed…it is that simple~!
I hope number 3 is correct. The new senate will still be majority Democrat so there is still a chance they may obtain appointments. Whatever the case I hope both of these guys get plenty of coverage in the media as more proof of Obama’s malfeasance (not likely but one can always hope). BTW is it my imagination or is Obama doing something to offend a segment of public at least one a week, from trying to destroy democracy in Honduras, Poland-Czech missile defense, Arizona, KSM, military tribunals, Wal-Marts DVDs for the British PM, a freedom medal for Mary Robinson, cap and trade, bowing to foreign leaders, offending Israel, apologizing for America, a Cairo speech that consisted of fabrications, ignoring the struggle of Iranian and Arab liberals, Obamacare, transparently pointless Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, channeling millions of dollars to Gaza for some reason even though it will eventually support Hamas, telling the Taliban when our reinforcement-troops will withdraw, introducing uncertainty into the marketplace so that no businessman wants to invest in expansion, incompetent management of the BP spill, race based DOJ actions, release of quasi-classified information, massive and debilitating spending, blaming everything that goes wrong on straw men and president Bush, and now judicial appointments for moral pond scum,the list of maladroit-isms requires a team professional researchers at this point.
I apologize if overlooked particular Obama bad decisions or acts. I’m only human.
Maybe now is the time for term limits. Judicial activism and it’s self-proclaimed role as determiner of our ethos has ripped the Constitution’s balance of power. And instead of corrections, there is exploitation. Like FDR’s attempt to high-jack the Supreme Court, our leaders, conservative and liberal, play political football with judicial nominations. It is long past time to stop them.
Robert H. Bork said: “The Court is obviously not responsible for all that has gone wrong in our culture, but it is responsible in no small measure.”
“Slouching Toward Gomorrah” (Regent Books)
Obama’s Aunt Zeituni: Ingrate!
What do you do with an auntie named Zeituni?
I posed that Maria-ish question back in February in “Zeituni’s Place in Obama’s Zeitgeist,” (http://tiny.cc/ncqdx), when President Barack Hussein Obama’s Aunt Zeituni Onyango was still awaiting a decision on her third request for asylum in the United States.
Onyango, a Kenyan, just like Obama’s father and much of his extended family, arrived on our shores in 2000, overstayed her visa–by about 10 years–went on welfare and lived in a homeless shelter.
She then was given priority treatment for public housing in Boston while seeking legal refuge here on the questionable basis that she would be in danger if she returned home to Kenya because she was the aunt of a U.S. president.
Unemployed, she still lives in South Boston on disability payments of $700. a month.
In any event, she insisted she didn’t want any special treatment from nephew Barack due to her familial status, and insists she didn’t get any.
Despite being fondly remembered in Obama’s Dreams from My Father, the president said that if she were living here as an illegal alien–which she was, and on the dole–”Dear Auntie Zeituni” should be deported. As he put it, ”If she has violated laws, then those laws have to be obeyed. We are a nation of laws.”
To his credit, I guess, Obama cuts no slack for relatives. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1917)
It’s long since past time that bad judicial nominees rammed through by the Democrats should be impeached as soon as there is a sufficient majority in Congress. They don’t need to wait for high crimes and misdemeanors — impeach them on the grounds that they were unqualified to begin with, and on the grounds of their past decisions, and on the grounds of corruption in the confirmation process. I would extend this to Supreme Court appointments like Elena Kagan, who is prima facie unqualified because she is a communist. (A closet communist, but one nonetheless, and communists explicitly reject the Constitution, after all.)
Don’t forget Sotomayor.
Did he choose them because they share common beliefs?
no he fills in the blank by COLOR– first ASIAN
Obama’s GOAL is to round out the ETHNIC rainbow
then he can boast of his diversity agenda
next up (you can put money on this) he will propose a MUSLIM
I mean we have Women, Jews and Latinas now- so you know, only fair to have an “ISLAMIC justice”…..(in quotes as those 2 words together make an oxymoron)
It must really bother you to have Jews as Justices, after all, what would a Jew know about Justice. Let’s try women next. Could this hint that you are a sexist, anti-Semitic, Latino hating b*stard?
Its so great to have you on my side, it makes my skin crawl.
and you would be 100% WRONG- as I am FEMALE and JEWISH live in a 50% Hispanic city, my dau is married to a Columbian
I am no bigot I just do not advocate allowing ISLAM which I know is a subversive group into USA anymore than it already is
yes I don’t want my supremes chosen by color or ethnicity and gender even my own
and I most certainly do not want anyone who believes in sharia law as a supreme
Joel,
What is the source of this quote?
Oh, and by the way, the link with this text:
does not reinforce that view. There’s nothing in the link about breaking federal law–in fact, the link clearly states that Chatigny had been investigated and cleared on any wrongdoing. So the link oddly contradicts your text.
Crickets.
Let me guess? Mao caps and Che t-shirts for casual attire?
How can you say this?
“In 12 child pornography cases, he violated federal law by issuing less severe prison sentences than are mandated by federal sentencing guidelines.”
As a lawyer, you know that isn’t true. It was not unlawful to depart from the guidelines. These were not “violations.” These were not mandatory minimums as you sneakily suggest by using the phrase “mandated” guidelines.
I am no fan of chatigny. I am stridently opposed to his nomination, in fact. But partisan fanatics don’t care at all for the legitimate reasons for opposing this nomination.