October 29, 2009 C-SPAN

Part 1

Part 2

From Alternet--Obama Is Keeping Bush's Worst "War on Terror" Policies Firmly In Place

We know the rules by now, the strange conventions and stilted Kabuki scripts that govern our cartoon facsimile of a national security debate. The Obama administration makes vague, reassuring noises about constraining executive power and protecting civil liberties, but then merrily adopts whatever appalling policy George W. Bush put in place. Conservatives hit the panic button on the right-wing noise machine anyway, keeping the delicate ecosystem in balance by creating the false impression that something has changed. We've watched the formula play out with Guantánamo Bay, torture prosecutions and the invocation of "state secrets." We appear to be on the verge of doing the same with national security surveillance.

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During the John Roberts confirmation hearings, when Roberts argued against applying discrimination laws in memorandum, Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was adamant in defense of judges who "respected precedent:"

Roberts’ memorandums and briefs were “absolutely consistent with the Supreme Court ruling of the United States at that time. So, all I would say is, I think it’s unfair to suggest that he has a record that indicates that he was somehow wrong on civil rights at that time.” When asked about his brief as Deputy Solicitor General in Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, arguing that victims of intentional discrimination should not receive damages under Title IX, Senator Sessions said: “On the Gwinnett case, the Title IX, the women’s education case, the position you took that would deny the right to sue a state entity, a government entity for money damages, wasn’t that a position consistent with the position of the Court of Appeals that had written the only opinion on the subject? … So you, in advocating on that position, were expressing a view that was the view of the highest federal court in the land at that time?”

(Emphasis supplied.) Of course, that involved discrimination against non-white males so of course Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, admirer of the KKK, labeller of the NAACP as a "commie" organization, would think that. You see, Sessions has deep empathy for the poor white male - so oppressed in our society. Everybody else? Not so much, The perfect embodiment of the GOP.

Speaking for me only

July 13, 2009 C-SPAN

December 11, 2008 C-SPAN

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, brings up the Marc Rich affair and says he wants Eric Holder to answer more questions about it before he'll allow his nomination as attorney general to advance:

The position of attorney general, although it's appointed by the president, is very different from all the rest of the appointments. Because he is all of us, every citizen in this country, the chief law-enforcement officer of this land. His loyalty is not to the president, his loyalty has to be to the Constitution. It has to be to the responsible bodies that guide this country.

And although if we in fact have hearings early, we will have to have additional hearings. We will not allow a vote to occur until we have thoroughly, to each member of the Judiciary Committee's satisfaction, have that examined the record, and had the questions answered that are going to need to be answered with regard to some of the events that have taken place late in the Clinton administration.

Gotta wonder if Democrats will remember crap like this when Republicans begin mewling about "bipartisanship" again -- that is, when it suits them.