GOP Senators to Push Judicial Nominee

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican senators are ready to try again to get one of President Bush’s judicial nominees from Mississippi onto the federal appeals court. But some Democrats seemed ready to put up a fight to keep Leslie Southwick off the bench.

“I am not convinced that he is the right nominee for this court at this time,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
[...]

Southwick has some supporters among Democrats, however, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “Judge Southwick is a qualified, sensitive and circumspect person,” said Feinstein, who said the nominee was neither insensitive or a racist.

Feinstein provided the winning vote for Southwick in the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, which approved his nomination on a 10-9 vote.

Associated Press

Source: AP

Hear, hear!

What say you, Arlen, that we take a quick peak at Southwick’s record?

Two strong cases to vote no, eh Arlen? If not, there’s more… probably… we really don’t know. You see, “not all of Southwick’s record has been provided to the Judiciary Committee, including records from his tenure in the Bush 41 Department of Justice and more than two year’s worth of unpublished decisions by the Mississippi Court of Appeals in cases on which he voted but did not write an opinion.”

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You’ve probably all heard about the letter that Specter said was due by noon today from the administration, re: Gonzales testimony. Bet me they’ll get the “magic letter” and everything will be all cleared up. Snarlin Arlen probably helped write it.

And if Sen. Specter (R-PA) is still on the fence about where to go next, he might consider this: 70% percent of those polled -including 49% of Republicans- think that Congress is right to investigate Gonzales.

From TPM:

Here’s a little more information on that mysterious letter from the administration expected by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA).

After a classified briefing on the NSA’s wiretapping program yesterday, Specter said that he expected a letter on the subject by noon today — the letter, supposedly, would help explain the attorney general’s questionable testimony on the program. Specter, however, indicated nothing as to what he expected the letter to say.

In today’s White House press briefing, Tony Snow provided precious little information. He only said that the letter, which will come from the Justice Department, is still forthcoming, probably in the next several hours. He would say nothing about the letter’s contents except that it will answer a number of questions that Specter had about Gonzales’ testimony.

So we continue to wait.

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He probably told Bush before he did it, ” George, just go with me on this one. You know when it comes down to it, my head will still be shoved way up your ass.”

Guests of President Bush aboard Air Force One generally know that he expects them to behave in a certain way: No showboating or mingling with the on-board press corps and, certainly, no criticizing the commander in chief or his team.

Senator Arlen Specter violated both points of decorum on Thursday. He visited with reporters aboard the presidential airplane before it lifted off for Philadelphia and lambasted the attorney general.

Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, wandered back into the press cabin as the plane sat on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base before the president arrived from the White House.

According to a pool report of the encounter, Mr. Specter expressed anew his criticism of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales but said he saw no signs that Mr. Gonzales would be forced to resign. Mr. Specter attributed Mr. Gonzales’s job security to Mr. Bush’s “personal loyalty” to him.

More at the New York Times

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cross-posted at THINK PROGRESS

Senate Judiciary Committee heads Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) wrote Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today, demanding he provide answers by June 5 to their “longstanding questions about the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.”

Leahy and Specter

The senators told Gonzales that the new request came in light of James Comey’s extraordinary testimony last week, which raised “very serious questions about your personal behavior and commitment to the rule of law.”

This Committee has made no fewer than eight formal requests over the past 18 months - to the White House, the Attorney General, or other Department of Justice officials - seeking documents and information related to this surveillance program. These requests have sought the Executive Branch legal analysis of this program and documents reflecting its authorization by the President. You have rebuffed all requests for documents and your answers to our questions have been wholly inadequate and, at times, misleading.

“To consider any changes to FISA,” Leahy and Specter write, “it is critical that this Committee understand how the Department and the FISA Court have interpreted FISA and the perceived flaws that led the Administration to operate a warrantless surveillance program outside of FISA’s provisions for over five years.”

In other words, Leahy and Specter are telling Gonzales: turn over the information now, or President Bush’s desired changes to FISA are going nowhere.

reada the entire letter at THINK PROGRESS

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You know, if he resigns, great. But what happens then. I want the guy charged with perjury. Let’s see THAT happen. And Snarlin Arlen Specter needs to go, too. The provision added to a bill (in the middle of the night) to allow Bush/Gonzales to replace US attorneys without congressional approval came from his office. Why hasn’t anyone in congress made HIM answer as to WHY he felt the need to do that? And now he has the balls to say he thinks Gonzales should resign. He’s the biggest flip flopping liar there is.

The top Republican on the Senate committee investigating Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday he believes Gonzales could step down before a no-confidence vote sought this week by Senate Democrats.

Gonzales failed to draw a public statement of support from Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. Asked whether Gonzales effectively can lead the Justice Department, McConnell said “that’s for the president to decide.” The senator suggested there may be several resolutions introduced to dilute a no-confidence vote.

“In the Senate, nobody gets a clear shot,” said McConnell, R-Ky.

Yet Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he believed a “sizable number” of GOP lawmakers would join Democrats in expressing their lack of confidence in the attorney general.

Five Republicans have urged Gonzales to resign over his firing of federal prosecutors, while several other Republicans have expressed criticism of his actions.

“Votes of no confidence are very rare,” Specter said. “Historically, that is something which Attorney General Gonzales would like to avoid. I think that if and when he sees that coming, he would prefer to avoid that kind of a historical black mark.”

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Whatta ya think about this Snarlin Arlen?

In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The “evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed,” concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.

The researchers’ re-analysis involved new statistical calculations and a modern chemical analysis of bullets from the same batch Oswald is purported to have used. They reached no conclusion about whether more than one gunman was involved, but urged that authorities conduct a new and complete forensic re-analysis of the five bullet fragments left from the assassination 44 years ago.

More at MSNBC

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I can’t believe the balls this guy has. He’s the one who slips the provision in the Patriot Act that allows Gonzales to place US attorneys without congressional approval (at the request of the AG’s office), and now he’s talking about firing him. Arlen…..STFU. And these supposed “journalists” aren’t bothering to ask him why he did that to begin with. What a world…..

WASHINGTON - Republican support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales eroded Sunday as three key senators sharply questioned his truthfulness and a Democrat joined the list of lawmakers who want him to resign over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Gonzales would have to step down if he did not tell the truth when he told Congress that he was not involved in discussions about a group of fired U.S. prosecutors at the center of the Washington controversy.

“We have to have an attorney general who is candid, truthful and if we find that he has not been candid and truthful, that’s a very compelling reason for him not to stay on,” Specter said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Story at MSNBC

More on Gonzales here

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