ConfirmThem

There needs to be site that accurately monitors and evaluates Obama's judicial picks. Ultra-liberal nominees should not be allowed to be presented to the American public as mainstream moderates. We all know that is exactly what Obama, the Senate Democrats, the MSM and liberal special-interest groups like Alliance for Justice will do. The biased analyis of such liberals as Jeffrey Rosen, Dahlia Lithwick and Adam Liptak should not be allowed to stand without a response from conservatives.

P.S. Andrew, I am willing to lend my time and energy to keep this site going if that's what it takes.

I agree with Quin - we will need a site to discuss Obama's judicial nominees. NRO's Bench Memos will remain a helpful resource, but it's not an open forum. This existing site has achieved a level of readership, brand recognition, and trust, that shouldn't lightly be discarded.

I dont comment often, in fact probably havent in the last few months (year?), but I definitely check the site every day to read the new posts and comments. I've read so many comments from Bobo, AC1, Classic, BillM, Skippy1 etc that it almost feels as if I know them. I would like this site to continue... This is a great place where Judicial nominees can be discussed. I also see this site (along with Bench Memos and maybe Volokh) as a gathering place for knowledgeable people who can properly vet Obama's judicial nominees, because we know how the media is going to treat them.

I hope you will seriously consider keeping this site going.

------------------------
Is it because I is black? - Ali G

I think Quin makes a good suggestion about adding a question mark; the proprietors at Redstate ought to think about redesigning the confirmthem logo so it includes the question mark.

I'm on "sabbatical", but would urge the proprietors at Redstate to sign up Bobo as a blogger.

My biggest objection, as well as many bloggers here, has been that nominees have not even been given a vote. We could change the site to 'Voteonthem'.

But I do hope this site in some capacity remains.

Once Obama begins making nominations, I will continue to support them receiving a vote from the Senate. I continue to support officially changing the rules, requiring the Senate Judiciary committee to vote on a nominee within a fixed (180?) days of the president submitting the name, and the full Senate voting on the nominee a fixed (180?) days after that.

I would also support that becoming effective either in 2013 or immediately if Obama agrees to nominate some of Bush's delayed nominees, similar to how Bush nominated two of Clinton's.

The need for this site has just been redirected, not eliminated. We need a place to get information on Obama's "empathetic" judges. The news reports that make their way to this site by commenters makes this sort of a mini-Drudge Report for judicial matters. I don't have any knowledge of this, but I'd like to think that Senate staffers on the Judiciary committee even pop over here from time to time to take the temperature of conservatives interested in the latest nominee or issue. Come on Redstate, keep it going!

I am a long time reader and this is the first time I have commented, but I agree that this site needs to continue operating albeit a small name/logo change. I think the Confirmthem? is a good idea. Combined with other blogs, this can be an effective tool at getting out the truth about Obama's judicial nominees and helping to defeat those who sacrifice the rule of law for their own views.

A question mark if you must, but I don't want this place to be viewed as solely an obstacle to Obama nominees. I agree that elections have consequences and that a president should be allowed to nominate those whom he or she wishes to judicial posts.

For the most part, I agree with the "early" Joe Biden (if that ever really was the case) that if they are qualified academically and tempermentally then they should be confirmed.

I also agree that in "egregious" cases hyper liberals should be identified and their views and philosophy be objectively presented.

This also means that we need to choose our battles carefully. Of course, any SCOTUS nominee should be discussed in vigorous and open fashion here. Circuit court nominees as well. Some (a few?) COAs, recognizing the "farm league" nature of those positions.

On a personal level, this site has provided continuity for me. I deeply appreciated the kind wishes and prayers and encouraging comments when I shared a major medical situation a little over a year ago. I'm not saying this site should turn into an Oprah weep station (!), but there is the by product of camaraderie when we all have the same goal of seeking what is best for this nation when it comes to the federal courts.

Okay, I need more of you to write in and speak up for keeping the site going!
Quin Hillyer

that the paucity of response so far (though I think they've been very strongly supportive) could well be for two reasons: people are still licking their wounds from the election; and no appointments are currently being announced.

I hope the powers that be continue this site in faith that it will be of value in the not too distant future! "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

Sorry to use the word "hope," but it is a very fine word when used as intended and provided.

Why doesn't Mitch McConnell approach Obama and/or Rahm Emanuel and say if he wants cooperation on his judge nominations, he has to show some good faith and either push Reid to confirm a few of the stalled COA nominees (Keisler, the Conrads, perhaps Rosenstein) or promise to nominate one or two of them. Let's make a deal: a few good faith confirmations in this lame duck Congress or the filibuster will be unleashed with a vengeance!!

Good suggestion, but McConnell almost certainly won't do it. When I was among a group of about eight bloggers who interviewed McConnell around one big table at the GOp convention, he seemed utterly uninterested in pushing the judge issue any farther. He seemed to think it was hopeless, so why even try? Really ticked me off. Anyway, I am aware of several meetings in recent days among conservative heavy hitters talking specifically about what to do now about judges. Whatever they decided, if anything, the good news is that they are talking. I hope they reached the same conclusions Damico did.
Quin Hillyer

I would like to see this site continue. We need an open forum where Obama's judicial nominees can be discussed. I agree that nominees should receive a vote, but I also believe that judicial philosophy factors into qualifications.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR200811...

"One of the most important tasks that the Constitution delegates to the president is the appointment of federal judges. One of the first assignments that Barack Obama should undertake in discharging this critical responsibility as president is to find excellent judges to fill the four openings on the 15-member U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit."

"Obama should institute numerous measures that will enable him to fill these vacancies swiftly:

· The new president ought to practice bipartisanship. He must break the vicious cycle of accusations and countercharges, divisive partisanship and incessant paybacks.

· Obama should maximize consultation by seeking advice on candidates from Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, especially home-state senators, before formal nominations. The president ought to forward consensus nominees who are intelligent, ethical, independent and diligent and who have a balanced temperament. He must work closely with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the Judiciary Committee chairman, who schedules panel hearings and votes; Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who arranges floor debates and votes; and their Republican counterparts to expedite the confirmation process."

Notice how Tobias does NOT call for the renomination of any Bush nominees like Rosenstein or the Conrads. Aren't they qualified, and wouldn't their renominations by a Democratic president help to heal the wounds of "incessant paybacks"?

It would only take a few posts a week and some open threads to keep this site going. Even Bench Memos did not consistently cover judicial nominees as well as this site did. A lot of other sites are sort of hit and miss with regard to this subject. OTOH, if I didn't know who Obama was nominating, I would probably feel better...)

We were just starting to make progress.

Stevens is probably gone now. I will be shocked if Coleman wins the recount. I do think Chambliss will win. Either way, we have no effective filibuster on the Senate floor now. We could still have a few of our Senators object and force cloture motions and take the entire 3 days to speak. Maybe that would at least slow this train down.

Due to the fact that Senate races have a great impact on the judicial confirmation process, I would be willing to write a post every few weeks to update people on the Senate races around the country. I am not sure if that would fit into the mission of this site or not.

I "vote" for maintaining this site in some way. It is an excellent resource for staying up to date on judicial nominations and appointments and provides a great forum for debate on those issues. This site can shine an important light on Obama's judicial nominations and keep them from flying under the radar. Please keep it going!

Yes, Stevens does seem to be a gonner. I do hold out hope re the MN race, however.

Looking to the future, what are the races in 2010. I'm thinking (hoping?) that 2008 will be the high water mark for Dems. With someone like Steele or Gingrich at the helm of the GOP, first class people can be recruited for both senate and house seats. Plus fund raising.

This combined with 2012 presidential wannabes helping fire up the troops and raising money.

I vote in favor of keeping this site going. We all know that the media will give a free pass to Obama’s nominees, and that even the most extreme left wing activists will be held out to the public as being “mainstream.” Given the sense of futility coming from the Republican leadership in the Senate, we cannot expect them to apply adequate scrutiny, and we know their neglect will be spun by the media as approval by acquiescence. There needs to be a voice to put the public on notice of what the Senate is signing on to with respect to judicial nominees. If the Senate Republicans want to give up in frustration, and if the public doesn’t receive or act on our advice, then I say it would still be better for there to be a record preserved for future generations who might look back and find wisdom. If we don’t do this job, nobody will.

when's the decision going to be made? By whom?

How about calling it JudgeThem, at least during the Obama administration? We're not saying we want Obama's nominees confirmed. We're saying give them an honest, fair review - i.e., judge them on their qualifications (unlike the Dems' disgusting treatment of so many Bush nominees) - and then move forward to confirm or reject.

JudgeThem!

I've been lurking CT ever since I became a RS member, and I think it's a great site that needs to stay. Now that a Democrat is moving into the White House, it's going to be crucial to monitor his judicial nominations and make sure that he's not polluting the Judicial Branch.

So my vote is: keep it going!

I really don't get the name.

ConfirmThem was originally conceived in order to help build momentum toward getting filibustered Bush nominees confirmed.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/11/16/greg_craig_selecte...

"President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Washington lawyer Gregory B. Craig, who served as President Bill Clinton's lead attorney during the 1998 impeachment proceedings, to be his White House counsel, according to an individual involved with the transition.

Craig has been a longtime adviser to former president Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but became a close adviser to Obama during the campaign, reportedly serving as the stand-in for Sen. John McCain during debate preparations.

Transition officials declined to comment, and Craig did not return calls left on his machine.

Craig was a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. He has defended high-profile clients, including John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, and Kennedy nephew William Kennedy Smith, who was accused of rape.

But it was his defense of Clinton on the floor of the U.S. Senate during the impeachment trial that vaulted the 63-year-old lawyer to prominence.

As White House counsel, Craig will be responsible for steering the new president through a series of legal thickets that have become controversial during the past eight years, including torture policy and the legal disposition of prisoners at Guantanamo."

Since Craig is a former Clinton lawyer, expect a lot of failed Clinton nominees to be renominated in January or February. As I have already said, we can expect the following nominations in January or February:

1) Elena Kagan to the D.C. Circuit
2) Andre Davis to the Maryland seat on the 4th Circuit
3) James Wynn to the North Carolina seat on the 4th Circuit.

I also anticipate that Obama will attempt to nominate failed Clinton nominee Elizabeth Gibson of North Carolina to the South Carolina seat vacated by Wilkins. It remains to be seen whether or not Lindsay Graham and/or Jim DeMint will be able to stop such a state transfer. After all, the 4th Circuit was unfairly loaded with South Carolina nominees by former SJC chairman Strom Thurmond. South Carolina by population does not arguably deserve as many seats as it presently has on the 4th Circuit.

http://www.wc.com/attorney-GregoryCraig.html

"In 2000, Mr. Craig successfully represented Elian Gonzalez's father, Mr. Juan Miguel Gonzalez, in administrative and court proceedings involving Mr. Gonzalez's effort to regain custody of his son, Elian."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1117/p09s01-coop.html

"President-elect Barack Obama vowed in his campaign to reduce the toxic partisanship that has poisoned the federal government. One critical way to make good on this promise and provide an antidote to longstanding toxicity is through bipartisan judicial appointments."

"Mr. Obama should begin by soliciting guidance on candidates from Democratic and Republican senators, especially from the states where vacancies materialize, before nominating candidates formally.

He should keep in mind that senior Republican Judiciary Committee panel members, such as Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Orrin Hatch of Utah will assume much responsibility for GOP participation in the Senate approval process. Indeed, President Bill Clinton's consultation with Senator Hatch when he led the committee prompted the smooth confirmation of Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer."

"The president should also cooperate with the Senate and House to expeditiously pass a comprehensive judgeships bill that would authorize more than 60 new appellate and district court seats. This proposal embodies recommendations by the Judicial Conference, the federal courts' policymaking arm, which are premised on conservative estimates of judges' work and case loads.

Congress has not enacted thorough judgeships legislation since 1990, while passage would allow the federal bench to resolve cases more swiftly, economically, and equitably. The chief executive and lawmakers might even consider and inaugurate a bipartisan judiciary that would permit the GOP to recommend a small percentage of nominees."

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/begich-grows-lead-gives-dems-hopes-f...

"Senate Democrats view 58 as a crucial number in the Senate because it would give them enough votes, when combined with Maine’s two liberal Republican senators, to quash obstructionist Republican procedural tactics.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) are considered the most likely to vote with Democrats on procedural votes that need to be cleared to pass controversial legislation. Some conservative activists believe, for example, that it would be useless to attempt to filibuster liberal judicial nominees if Democrats control 58 seats because they expect Collins and Snowe to vote with the majority often."

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/conservatives-plan-offensi...

"When about 20 leading members of the conservative movement met last week at the Virginia home of one of their top strategists, they did more than hold a post-election support group.

They settled on the issue that a majority of the members of the informal think tank agreed would be their first major project and, perhaps, the key to galvanizing the right — a full-throated and well-financed assault on President-elect Obama’s approach to judicial nominations.

According to several people who will help lead the effort, conservatives were frustrated that the McCain campaign did not make more out of Mr. Obama’s pledge during the campaign to appoint judges to the bench based on their “sound judgment and empathy.”

Members of the group, who view Mr. Obama’s reference to “empathy” as a sign that the new president plans to seed the courts with judicial activists, are in the initial stages of planning a counter-push that they say will be every bit as aggressive as the fight to confirm John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Conservatives acknowledge that with new Democratic strength on Capitol Hill, it is likely to be a losing battle. Still, a key player in the effort, Leonard A. Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, said that the struggle, itself, is what matters.

“There are lot of conservatives out there who are casting about for a sense of purpose — a way of adding value in our political culture,” Mr. Leo said in an interview. “And this is an issue that the American people care deeply about. It’s a gateway issue in so far as it affects so many facets of American life.”

Key groups have already amassed $1 million for the cause and plan a concerted fund-raising drive during Mr. Obama’s first months in office. The effort will focus on outreach to members of Congress as well as a public education campaign that is likely to include paid advertising and a grassroots component.

Wendy Long, counsel at the right-leaning Judicial Confirmation Network, distributed a memo this week to groups that plan to be active in the push in which she suggested that post-election polling showed that most Americans favor judicial restraint. And that’s where the conservatives see an opening. The memo also provided a glimpse of the pressure the coalition intends to place on lawmakers.

“Careful scrutiny by the Senate is certainly called for, and all of us can help in that task,” Ms. Long wrote. “We must ourselves scrutinize Obama nominees very carefully, and let the American people know what they are getting. We should view the votes on Obama judges as great opportunities. Far from preventing such votes, we should welcome them. Senators will be accountable for those votes in their home states.”

Robert Alt, the deputy director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the issue of judicial nominees could be a “galvanizing point” for conservatives and even moderates if Mr. Obama chose to appoint judges that Republicans consider out of the mainstream.

“With a single party in control of both the White House and Congress,” Mr. Alt said, “there is a genuine risk for the new administration in terms of overreaching.”"

is a perfect example of why this site must continue! We can be informed and mobilized to action when needed.

works for me, unless someone comes up with something better. I just hope that the login and names stay the same, with access just as easy--given apporpriate and clean content of course!

That makes sense. If the CT proprietors are really desperate for a name change, I like JudgeThem.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/17/voting-record-clouds-oba...

"President-elect Barack Obama will be the first president to have participated in Senate filibusters of judicial nominees - a distinction that conservatives say will haunt him in showdowns over anticipated nominations of liberal, activist judges to the federal bench.

Steeling themselves for battle over nominations, Senate Republicans say the president-elect's voting record and long simmering resentments over Democrats' treatment of President Bush's nominees will leave Mr. Obama hard-pressed to call for bipartisan help confirming judges or even an up-or-down vote on his picks."

"'It appears he is more committed to the appointment of activist judges than even President Clinton,' said Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, a member of the Judiciary Committee. 'One of the most troubling things of all was that he was in a distinct minority to vote against [Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.]. That says a lot about his judicial philosophy, I'm afraid.'"

"Mr. Sessions said Mr. Obama's nominees will face Republican roadblocks in committee and filibusters on the Senate floor if there is any indication they threaten to politicize the courts or legislate from the bench."

"Republicans also might be itching for a nomination fight with Mr. Obama after what they say was a low threshold set by Democrats for objecting to Mr. Bush's picks. Conservatives quip that all it took to raise a Democratic objection was for Mr. Bush to select a white man from the South.

'The Democrats have changed the standard of deference given to the White House,' Mr. Sessions said."

http://afjjusticewatch.blogspot.com/2008/11/battle-over-obama-judges-alr...

"Ironically enough, those same senators who cried “Obstruction!” any time one of President Bush's nominees was questioned are now preemptively preparing to block potential Obama appointees. Apparently, these senators have adopted the mantra of change for themselves, or at least changing their tune when it suits their ideological agenda, anyway. After all, for eight years, they’ve argued that the president’s nominees demand respect and should at least receive an up-or-down vote. But before a single candidate is put forward, Republican senators are already talking filibuster."

Oddly, the Alliance for Justice neglects to mention how they helped Senate Democrats obstruct dozens of Bush nominees. Their mantra appears to be:

"Only conservative nominees should be blocked - not our ultrapartisan liberal nominees!"