|
|
Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
 Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:52 am
|
 |
|
Guess who is a top candidate to fill Rehnquist's shoes?
Seedy.......!!!!!!!!! 
Bush aides ready to act on top court
By Jan Crawford Greenburg Washington Bureau Wed Jun 29, 9:40 AM ET
Following a strategy session with outside advisers last Friday on how to rally support for a potential Supreme Court nominee, a small group of
President Bush's closest aides is poised to take a short list of names into the Oval Office should Chief Justice
William Rehnquist step down.
Bush then would be expected to move quickly to nominate a successor, perhaps within days, despite speculation on Capitol Hill that the president could delay an announcement, a senior administration official has told the Tribune.
Top officials--including Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales, who also is under consideration to fill any Supreme Court vacancy--have met with possible nominees and researched their backgrounds. White House aides met Friday with four leading conservative advisers, including former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray, to discuss the confirmation process.
After months of preparation, the White House now is stepping back and awaiting word from Rehnquist. Eighty years old and gravely ill with thyroid cancer, Rehnquist is widely expected to step down in the near future, giving Bush his first nomination to the high court.
"We won't take the next step until there's a vacancy. Then everything will be compressed," the official said. "It will be on a very tight time frame."
But when Rehnquist declined to make an announcement from the bench Monday, even some of the president's advisers were left wondering when word might come. If Rehnquist has told Bush, the official said, it had not trickled down, even to some of his top aides.
`On pins and needles'
"We're on pins and needles," the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Speculation over Rehnquist's future has become more intense since he rose from his center seat and left the courtroom Monday morning.
The White House long has cautioned there is no vacancy on the court yet. The administration official emphasized that the White House would not dramatically narrow the list of possible nominees until a retirement occurs.
The official also said the White House hopes to wait a couple of days after the retirement before announcing a nominee, so as not to detract from the coverage of Rehnquist and his legacy.
The official said Bush's most trusted advisers will discuss the choice with him, including Vice President
Dick Cheney, Gonzales, chief of staff Andrew Card, White House Counsel Harriet Miers and senior presidential adviser Karl Rove.
Gonzales, Card, Miers and Rove already have held lengthy discussions over the prospective nominees, the official said. They are focusing most closely on a handful of federal judges, with Gonzales held in a separate category for the president to consider, the official has said.
Hearings on the nominee before the Senate Judiciary Committee could take place within four to six weeks of an announcement, immediately after a background investigation is complete, a GOP congressional aide said Tuesday.
Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) (R-Pa.) would consider holding hearings in August, when the Senate is in recess, or immediately upon conclusion of the background checks, the congressional staffer said.
Last week, Miers visited Capitol Hill to meet with Senate leaders, including Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Specter, as well as Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) (D-Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
A Democrat congressional aide said that although the court was discussed in those meetings, they were seen as courtesy visits by Miers, who had not previously met with Senate Democratic leaders. The meetings did not constitute the type of consultation on specific nominees that Senate Democrats have urged Bush to do, the Democratic staffer said.
The White House also has had discussions with four leading conservatives about how best to support the nominee and marshal him through the confirmation process, sources said. That group comprises Meese, Gray, Jay Sekulow, who frequently argues before the Supreme Court and is chief counsel for the legal group American Center for Law & Justice, and Leonard Leo, who leads the Federalist Society, an organization of conservative lawyers.
On Friday, Card, Rove and Miers met with the four at the White House. The conversation focused exclusively on the process, sources said, and not on any specific nominee. The outside advisers support all of the federal judges on the short list, sources said, although there is less enthusiasm for tapping the more moderate Gonzales to take Rehnquist's place.
Conservatives dislike Gonzales
Bush often has said he would like to name a Hispanic to the Supreme Court, and Gonzales would be an historic choice as chief justice. But conservatives chafe at the thought of Gonzales replacing Rehnquist, who is viewed as a conservative icon, sources said.
They point to Gonzales' decisions as a Texas Supreme Court justice striking down some state abortion regulations, as well his insistence as White House counsel against taking a hard line opposing affirmative action.
"Does he care enough that that would stop him?" the official asked of whether Bush would nominate Gonzales over conservative opposition. "It would be a benefit to the party over a long period of time, and it would be historic."
Of Bush's decision, he said: "It will be a very personal choice."
The official said the White House has seriously considered a handful of federal judges, including J. Michael Luttig and J. Harvie Wilkinson, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit based in Richmond, Va.; John Roberts, of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; Samuel Alito, of the Philadelphia-based Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; and Michael McConnell, of the Denver-based Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
Sources close to the White House said Luttig, Roberts and Alito have emerged as the leading contenders.
But the official cautioned that all are highly regarded and remain in contention, and that Bush's choice at this point could be like "lightning striking."
_________________
Heard it from a pilot who spoke real gooooood! |
| |
|
|
Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
|
Sat Jul 02, 2005 6:11 pm
|
|
|
Torture Architect Gonzales Could Be Bush's Supreme Court Pick
Paul Joseph Watson | July 1 2005
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/010705supremecourt.htm
After the resignation today of Sandra Day O'Connor, many Washington insiders are predicting that current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could be Bush's pick to take her place.
Even if he isn't selected this time, another space will open up when the ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist quits.
The Democrats will come out in full force against Gonzales and then Bush will be able to claim that petty minded partisanship is the motive behind the dissent. This fake squabble will mask the real reasons why Gonzales should be opposed across the board.
Bush will play the race card in lauding the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court and Gonzales' detractors will be labelled as racists.
We don't care whether a person is Hispanic, black, white, male, female, or polka-dotted, just as long as they believe in freedom and the ideals of the Founders.
On every single issue Gonzales has proven himself to be an enemy of liberty.
Gonzales is anti-gun, pro-abortion and pro-torture.
He came out in support of the semi-auto ban earlier this year.
Gonzales cast the tie-breaking vote in the Texas Supreme Court against a parental-consent requirement before a minor could obtain an abortion in the state of Texas.
Gonzales wrote the guidebook for torture, saying the Geneva Convention was "obsolete" and "quaint." He advocated indefinitely holding detainees at secret locations and subjecting them to abuse.
Gonzales said that Bush was above federal ad international law. This is a man that believes in dictatorship.
Gonzales is less conservative than John Forbes Kerry!
Gonzales believes that the Supreme Court alone decide what government actions are constitutional. According to World Net Daily editor Joseph Farah, Gonzales once told him during a dinner, "The Supreme Court tells us what the Constitution says and means."
This is a man that believes the Constitution is a living document and that nine black-robed brethren have carte blanche to interpret it any way they deem fit.
Washington insider Robert Novak accurately predicted the resignation of Day O'Connor (pictured above) earlier this week and those same sources are floating Gonzales as Bush's potential pick.
"Why the torrent of Gonzales leaks from a White House extraordinarily adept at holding back the president's intended nominations? It looks like a trial balloon, but there are also suspicions that Gonzales's name has been floated by critics in order to shoot him down."
"Conservatives fear Gonzales will be another in a long line of Supreme Court justices who have proved more liberal than the president who appointed them expected -- John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter. That is a view widely held inside the White House, but not by the occupant who counts most. George W. Bush loves Al Gonzales and would like his former chief counsel to head a "Gonzales Court."
Novak is used by the White House to leak trial baloons. The resignation was leaked early and now they are preparing the groundwork for Gonzales to be introduced.
The push to instate Gonzales must be resisted now by all real conservatives and anyone that cherishes what remaining liberty we have left.
Otherwise last week's imminent domain ruling will be seen as milquetoast compared to the havoc Gonzales will reak. |
| |
|
|
Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
|
Sat Jul 02, 2005 6:13 pm
|
|
|
I Love Torture
_________________
Heard it from a pilot who spoke real gooooood! |
| |
|
|
KNOW-THIS
Joined: 14 Jul 2003
Posts: 3694
|
|
Sat Jul 02, 2005 10:34 pm
|
|
|
Keep up the good work!!!
_________________
"You find me offensive? I find you offensive, for finding me offensive" |
| |
|
|
Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
|
Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:36 am
|
|
|
BUmp!!! |
| |
|
|
 
|
|
 Goto page Previous
1, 2
All times are GMT. The time now is Sat May 26, 2012 4:49 pm
|
|
|
|
|
Login
